Diagnosis
by angelindisguise247
Summary: Harry is diagnosed with cancer during 6th year, turning his world upside down and making him re-think every aspect of his life. He decides to make some changes before it's too late, and complete a "Before I Die" list, on which love steals a space. OOC! HD *Now adopted by Taylor1991*
1. Diagnosis

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine, I just like to borrow to amuse myself :) I don't make any money from this either. So, please don't sue me :)

Authors Note is at the bottom.

Chapter One - Diagnosis

In recent times it could be said that an anxious depression seemed to have taken hold of the entire population, both muggle and wizard alike. It spread like a disease in an epidemic fashion, born from the knowledge that he was back and determined to live up to his formidable reputation. It was easily noticeable in the faces of those that passed you in the street as they scurried along, even in their children's eyes as they questioned the unexplainable, yet undeniable, frantic quality to their parent's barks to just _hurry up_ already!

There was only one place left untouched by the mounting hysteria, a place that gave the gift of separation from the world outside to its students. Here, at Hogwarts, the children still laughed, made jokes, hung out with friends, and complained about the last-minute homework stealing their precious time, knowing they were safe.

One noteworthy student, however, did not particularly feel up to taking advantage of the rare but happy atmosphere that the castle offered, the blanket of magic wrapped around him giving no comfort…

..:..

Poppy Pomfrey stared at the boy sitting rigidly on the bed in front of her, waiting for his reaction as he absorbed the heavy words that had dropped from her lips just moments ago. She couldn't help but be afraid of having to consider the meaning of them herself, but as a dedicated healer she could not shy away from the time-bomb that had presented itself to her. She had a duty to be strong and provide the support that would undoubtedly be needed from her.

"You can't tell anyone." His voice finally breathed, quickly bringing her out of her daze.

"What?" she asked, shocked. She had prepared herself for a lot of possible reactions but this one had failed to cross her mind.

"Please Poppy, I _need_ you to keep this secret for me" her most frequent visitor pleaded her, and a pleading Harry Potter was almost impossible to deny.

"Why on earth would you want me to do that? Don't you want to get help? Support? Your friends would most certainly want to be informed of something like this! Are you intending to keep them in the dark?" she questioned incredulously. Harry bowed his head so she couldn't read his facial expressions, but when he looked her in the eye once more with a desperate glint she sighed and conceded defeat, appallingly easily.

"Very well. Dumbledore – "

"Not even Dumbledore." Came the unexpected clarification.

"_Seriously?_ But – "

"_Please_ Poppy, just trust me that I need this to be kept confidential!" The woman's mouth abruptly clacked shut.

"Alright. I won't tell anyone Harry." Harry shot her a relieved, grateful smile, even if it did seem like a mere shadow of what it usually was. This only made Pomfrey want to give the boy a much-needed hug, but she held herself back. If she came over all emotional in front of him she may just set him off too.

"May I go?"

"Sorry? Oh! Um, well, yes I suppose you might as well. I won't have any of the potions in for a few days yet, but if you pop in and see me at some point I can give them to you then."

"Thanks" Harry hopped down off of the bed and started in the direction of the door.

"Perhaps you'd like to stay here? Just tonight?" Poppy asked his back concernedly, only to be refused with the reassurance that he was fine as he walked out the door and left her standing there biting her lip and wondering what exactly this would all mean.

..:..

Brain cancer.

He had a cancer of the brain.

'What did that mean?' Harry wondered dazedly as he meandered back to the gryffindor common room. Well, he knew the obvious stuff. Like how he could die. But he didn't know how advanced the cancer was. What were his chances? Was he supposed to get that treatment that made all of your hair fall out? What did this mean for the rest of the world?

Madame Pomfrey probably could have answered a lot of his questions, and no doubt was actually supposed to tell him all of this while he was there, but to be fair she looked more shocked and confused than he had felt. He suspected she hadn't had her mind organised enough to think of all that after the impact of the news. Or maybe she simply hadn't had the heart to go into detail about the disease that was slowly killing him.

Either way Harry didn't want anyone to find out. If it turned out that he could be treated and eventually cured then it wouldn't be necessary to have everyone worrying and depressed over him. If not…well, Harry wanted the time to take it all in and make sure he understood everything he needed to know and what he needed to do before he even thought about telling anyone. Even then the drama would no doubt interfere with everything. People wouldn't be able to prepare for exams properly, and the time they spent with Harry would be tainted with the thought in the back of their minds that this would be some of the last moments they shared with him.

No, Harry would keep this secret.

"Hey Harry, how'd it go?"

Harry looked up across the gryffindor common room from his position in the portrait hole to a smiling Hermione sitting at the table in front of the fire doing homework with Ron. He walked over, an answering smile on his lips, and sat down on the couch next to Ron.

"Fine. She's getting some migraine potions for me in a few days." Hermione frowned concernedly.

"I thought you said it was just headaches? Did she find anything wrong? I know you think it's just Voldemort but these ones seemed different to the other times, y'know? Just, the way you act when you have one isn't the same."

"Geez 'Mione, don't worry so much, loads of people are just prone to migraines you know. It doesn't mean something awful is wrong with him and he's gonna drop dead tomorrow! Hannah in hufflepuff gets them all the time and she's fine." Ron answered jokingly, poking fun at Hermione for her worry over Harry and saving him from having to think of something to say.

"Oh shut up Ron, I know that perfectly fine, I was just asking for heaven's sake, more than what you did." Ron just raised his eyebrows in response to Hermione rolling her eyes at him.

"Oh, well ex_cuse_ me! Someone's moody today aren't they?"

"Well what do you expect when – "

"Guys, I'm just going to head upstairs and go to sleep, okay? My bed's sounding pretty tempting right now, I was up late last night."

"Sure Harry, goodnight."

"Night Harry."

The sounds of Ron and Hermione's escalating bickering floated on the air as Harry climbed the stairs to his dorm room, realising how tired he actually felt. He stripped down completely and climbed into bed, leaving his pyjama bottoms at the bottom of the bed so that he could put them on inside the confines of the curtains in the morning. He did not particularly want to get up and walk around while giving his dorm mates an eyeful after all. He found it uncomfortable to sleep wearing pyjamas, though he sometimes wore a t-shirt to bed when it was cold. The covers were pleasantly cool and welcoming, allowing him to lie in comfort as he let his consciousness drift until sleep took him.

..:..

The next day Harry couldn't help but start to think that his visit to Pomfrey had simply been a horrible dream. Everything was so _normal. _Nothing had changed at all. He almost expected some kind of major event to happen, something weird maybe, anything really which would reflect the life-altering diagnosis from Pomfrey. But the world kept turning around him anyway. As a result, Harry had succeeded in pushing the issue to the back of his mind to hopefully be forgotten about.

'I mean, really, what's the point of going back to see Pomfrey? She hadn't even explained what potion she was on about last night anyway.'

However, before he could fully attempt to write off the whole incident as some kind of nightmare in a bid to avoid dealing with it, Madame Pomfrey appeared in the doorway of his last period potions class.

"I apologise Severus but may I borrow Mr Potter? I need to talk some thing over with him about his last visit to me. I would have done it at the time but, well, I forgot." Here she blushed in a sheepishly embarrassed way, raising a few eyebrows, the most notable of which belonged to Draco Malfoy.

Since when did Madame Pomfrey do anything other than be efficient, organised, unflustered and dependable? Draco wondered vaguely what Potter had managed to do to put her in such a tizz and glanced up at his godfather, who was standing in front of his cauldron, to see if he thought the phenomenon was rather strange as well. Severus glanced down to meet his eyes once, confirming he too had noticed the oddity in Pomfrey's behaviour, besides the fact that this was quite possibly the first time he knew of that the healer had come to a class to fetch someone personally.

Both slytherins then looked over at the boy in question. Harry had gone a sickly pale colour and seemed frozen in place, his eyes fixed on his desk in front of him.

"Certainly Poppy. Potter, I do believe Madame Pomfrey is waiting."

There was a moment when it seemed like Harry would ignore both adults and remain where he sat instead, but after the suspiciously long pause he rose to his feet, trying to concentrate on breathing normally. He manoeuvred himself between desks and students till he reached Poppy, though he couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye.

The door closed behind the pair and it was as though a strange spell has been lifted and the rest of the world filtered back into Draco's mind, allowing him to more or less dismiss his curiosity of the incident with the passing thought that perhaps Potter was shagging Pomfrey, allowing a smirk to bloom and die on his lips in quick succession at his own, unvoiced joke.

Severus' eyes, however, lingered on the closed door and Harry's empty seat, a thoughtful frown gracing his harsh features.

..:..

"I'm surprised you didn't come back to see me yet, what with all the questions I left unanswered." Pomfrey made an attempt at a weak smile as she joked about the state she'd been in the night before, but gained no reaction from Harry, who watched the stones of the castle pass under him as he walked.

"Poppy? If I…I mean, _when_ I get really badly ill…can I please stay here? I don't want to be sent back to the Dursley's if it's getting about time for me to...to die." Harry mumbled, uncomfortable asking in the face of the likelihood that what he spoke of would indeed come to pass. Pomfrey's facial expression saddened at the reminder of how her and Harry had become so close.

Every school year began with the now standard check-up and healing of Harry. She had been horrified in his first year at her discovery of the wretched abuse everyone's favourite young man had endured at the hands of those charged with his care and protection. Harry had pleaded confidentiality then as well.

Of course Poppy couldn't give him that, certainly not when he was clearly being hurt so badly on such a regular basis at "home". However, her attempt at informing Dumbledore had been rewarded with nothing more than the claim that, despite the boy's obvious pain, the blood wards would keep him safe and protected from death eaters. He didn't care how much Harry hurt, as long as he remained living.

In the end she had decided to do the one thing she could do, and the one thing she had once sworn would not happen: she developed a healthy relationship with the boy, beyond the distant and aloof kind of relationship of patient and healer she shared with other students. If no one else would listen to him and care for him then she would, regardless of the fact it was technically favouring one student above others.

He deserved it.

He needed it.

And Pomfrey could tell Harry revelled in having someone he could share his thoughts and feelings with. She squeezed his shoulder lightly and said, "Of course you can Harry, you're always welcome. I would invite you into my own home if it came down to it." Harry glanced at her out of grateful green eyes and smiled, conveying his thanks and allowing her to scrunch her nose up and grin at him in affection as she raised her hand to his head and messed up his hair.

'At least he can still smile.' Thought Poppy. 'As long as he can be happy we'll get through this.'

..:..

When, at last, Harry was secreted away in Poppy's office, she forcefully reeled in her emotions and allowed her professionalism to take over.

"Right then. I will tell you what I know and then once I am finished you may ask any questions I have not yet answered." Harry nodded, biting his lip and playing with the large holes in the knees of his trousers. Other people had thankfully attributed them to a preference of the scruffy style of fashion on his part.

"As I told you yesterday I have diagnosed you with brain cancer. Specifically you have a tumour growing in your head, that is what is causing the headaches. Unfortunately it is very advanced, surprisingly so. I believe your magic has somehow been keeping you healthier than you should be at this stage.

"However, magic can't do everything, and despite the fact you're body is clearly fighting tooth and nail to survive, cancer will eventually win. In fact, if anything, it would have been better if your magic had done nothing, we probably could have caught the disease earlier.

"I'm afraid by this point you'd have no chance in the muggle world. In the wizarding world your chances are, while slightly better, still slim to none." Here Pomfrey gripped the cushions of her seat in a tight grip, reminding herself she had to do this.

"The best we can really do is treat the symptoms as they come to make you as comfortable and active as possible for as long as possible. As time goes on you're likely to experience a number of symptoms, as I just mentioned, some of which may include migraines, loss of the senses such as taste, sight or smell, fainting spells, memory loss – "

"How long?" Harry cut her off. There was a pause.

"Harry, I know you feel like you're supposed to be involved in the defeat of Voldemort, but don't feel like you have a time-limit or anything in which you have to kill him. Dumbledore and The Order can handle it. In reality you're still just a teenager, you should have no place in such a war – "

"Poppy. How long before I die?"

Pomfrey sighed.

"I would say a year give or take a while."

They both sat in silence for a long time.

End Chapter

**Authors Note: **This is my first fic, though I've been reading for years, so I'd be very much interested in constructive criticism, I want to improve after all :) So, please review!


	2. Growth and Development

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine, I just like to borrow to amuse myself ) I don't make any money from this eith

Disclaimer: See first chapter please :)

**Warnings/about this fic (please read, I know it's annoying but it gets all the stuff that needs to be said out of the way in a oner!): **

**1. On pairings: **Okay, I just wanted to point some things out about this fic. First of all, this will eventually be a Harry/Draco story if you didn't already know where it was heading or if you see something which makes you suspect otherwise. I just thought I'd tell you that in case it affects whether or not you still want to read this story. I'm sorry, but that fact is also something that won't change. Not that I can see just now anyway. Also, it will take a while to really take a significant part, I like a slow development :).

**2. On originality (or lack thereof): **I know a lot of you seem to really like the whole original-concept thing, so I thought I would warn you that, while this story may have an original theme, I want you under no illusions that I won't be using unoriginal stuff either. On the contrary, I will actually be using a lot of completely unoriginal and cliché concepts lol :P My reasons for this are that, while I don't want to just more or less copy everything from other people (hence originality aspect), this is still my first fic and I thought it would be a good idea to stick to themes I know well and which I am comfortable with. At least for my first attempt and with no experience.

I'm keeping a **progress log on my profile** so you can see roughly my progress with the next chapter and therefore how long it will be until the next update.

Also, **reviewers**, you are all SUPER important to me, if you log in I will make sure to reply to any questions etc you may have, I don't want you feeling ignored or neglected. If I fail to reply and you would like one don't hesitate to get on at me for it :P Also, I would love to hear more in depth anything you all have to say about my fic and hear any suggestions, the bits you love, the bits you don't, what you'd like to see more of or less of etc. The only way I can think just now to do that is if you add me on msn: angelindisguise247(at)hotmail(dot)com because there's not really anywhere else to talk to me like that. Except email maybe. Anyway, feel free to talk to me!!

I'm sorry about the fairly long A.N at the beginning of this chapter but I felt this stuff needed to be said and if I get it out now it means I can avoid doing it in future chapters, I know it annoys some people having to scroll past a whole pile of text to the story.

This chapter:

1) Is around 9600 words long without my rambling :)

2) Was really quite a struggle, so I'm feeling really unsure and doubtful about the success of it /

3) Has bits added in that my betas haven't seen, so sorry for any stupid mistakes or general crapness, though that could just be my writing XD

Anyhoo, ONWARDS!

Chapter 2 – Growth and Development

Harry sat down at the dinner table and eyed the evening's choice of meals. This was a bad idea really, because what he found was the last thing he wanted to have to deal with right now. He really couldn't be bothered with it. Really, REALLY couldn't be bothered with it.

"Urgh!" He exclaimed in disgust and let his head fall down onto his folded arms on the table; Ginny giggled.

"Alright there Harry?"

"Nnnngh" was Harry's reply, completely mangled and impossible to make out because of the fact that his nose was squished against the back of his hand. However, it did get the general point across and it put an amused smile on Hermione's face.

Harry lifted his head up so that he could be heard.

"I SO can NOT be bothered trying to guess what the hell the ingredients are for every freaking dish here. Who's idea was it to change the menu and experiment with the meal rotation anyway? I may have to kill them."

"Don't be so dramatic Harry, it's not that bad." Said Hermione, still smiling

"Says you. You can just pick up whatever you want and stuff your face. You don't have to analyse it so much that the last thing you want to do is eat it by the time you're done with it."

"I bet I can beat you this time, I only lost by one point last time remember? It was that cappuccino. Who uses _eggs_ to make the foamy bit anyway? Any _normal_ person uses just milk." Neville joined in.

"Sorry Neville, I'm not really in the mood. And besides, I still wouldn't have been able to drink a cappuccino anyway, even if it didn't have the eggs in it, milk has lactose remember?" Harry leaned his head in his hand—fully prepared to just go without eating—and sighed.

The smiles from his friends faded at Harry's lack of enthusiasm for their attempt at making a bit of a game from the necessary task of figuring out which meal had what ingredients in it.

"It's alright Harry, I spoke to Dobby in the kitchens earlier and he mentioned that they were trying out different things tonight. He said you could eat the spaghetti bolognaise when I mentioned your allergies."

"Thanks Ron, you're officially my favourite person right now." Harry spooned half a plate-full of food for himself and gave a tired kind of sigh. Once he had begun eating and talking to Neville, Ron and Hermione took turns at adding more bits and pieces of spaghetti bolognaise to Harry's plate when he wouldn't notice throughout the meal, as was the routine.

For the first part of the meal Harry made an effort to include himself and act like he would normally, but he slowly began to fade from the conversation until he eventually was no longer even listening to his friends as they joked around and teased each other. They left him to his silence, knowing that if he didn't feel like talking there was no point in forcing him.

He held his glass of water in one hand and caught a droplet on the outside of the container with a fingertip, dragging it around the surface.

His friends thought he didn't notice when they made an effort to get him to eat more, but he did. He wasn't sure how long they had been doing it, but when he'd first realised it he had felt his heart warming at the thought that his friends would care about him enough to do such a thing.

He was really lucky to have met them that day in first year.

He couldn't help but feel sad that he would never get to see them as adults. That he wouldn't get to see the kind of people they would become, or whether they changed for the better or worse. Who they would marry; what their kids would be like. He would miss it all.

But in a lot of ways he had already witnessed their growth and maturation. They had already begun developing into their more adult personalities, and Harry was positive they would all become amazing people.

He remembered Hermione as an eleven year old and smiled as he watched the girl in front of him speak happily and animatedly to Ginny, clearly content and comfortable. It was such a contrast to the small girl hiding under a bush of hair, utterly terrified she wasn't going to fit in. She had been so determined to prove her worth, by making it clear that she was intelligent and motivated to learn, adapt and fit in. Harry thought it was all just because she was unsure of herself in a new world where people seemed to dislike her on principle. She wanted so much to get herself a good reputation, and to be well liked among her teachers at this new school of hers. It was because of this that she had become almost obsessive about the rules. Harry didn't think he had ever seen anyone as highly-strung as Hermione.

But that was all different now. She was nowhere near as uptight and stressed out anymore. Instead she had mellowed out a lot and seemed far more relaxed about life in general. She understood that sometimes there are things more important than following rules. Her personality was much more friendly, open and welcoming. And she was much more understanding too, now that she could see things from a perspective beyond whatever would break the least rules. There was also, of course, the fact that she smiled much more than when Harry had first met her, and she had a spontaneous streak a mile wide, which Harry liked to think he and Ron had cultivated in her.

Well, maybe not that spontaneous, but whenever Harry and Ron decided to do something completely random and out of the blue she was always the first to come along and join in. She was a complete contrast to how she had started out at Hogwarts really.

Harry smiled and gave a quiet chuckle as the memories of his best friend flashed briefly in his minds eye. He loved her to bits really. Who knew where he would be without her?

Giving in to the urge, Harry wrapped his arm loosely around Hermione's shoulders and brought her in to his side to give her the only sort of sideways hug the table would allow. She turned her head and gave him a surprised look, but when he just smiled at her the expression quickly changed to one of happiness as she smiled back widely before turning back to her conversation without mentioning it. She did, however, exchange a pleased look with Ron as she tried to subdue her excitement at Harry's gesture of affection. Ron's expression answered her with hope.

Harry, however, saw nothing of this because he had just noticed Michael Corner get out of his seat, and was now watching as he made a move as if to approach their group. They all knew he and Ginny weren't on the best of terms and he had been spreading rumours about her and calling her names in an extremely childish retaliation to her rejection. It was as thought he just couldn't accept she didn't like him like that anymore. At all.

Ginny was in the middle of talking to Lavender and Parvati about their latest encounters with the boys they liked, and so didn't notice the pending confrontation. Before the boy could do much, however, Ron grabbed a breadstick from the table and broke it cleanly in two, keeping eye contact with him unwaveringly. He then set about pointedly breaking it into tiny little pieces, which he then placed on his empty plate and crushed under his own glass of pumpkin juice enthusiastically. When he was finished, he simply stared at Michael, glanced back at the fine powder he had reduced the breadstick to, and spit in it for good measure. Michael simply turned around and sat back down, giving Ron a nervous look.

"Ew, Ron, what the hell did you do that for?" Hermione looked quite disgusted at Ron's glob of spit sitting in his plate. He just grinned at her.

"Sorry, thought a fly flew into my mouth. Don't you hate it when that happens?" Hermione just shook her head at him and returned to her conversation once more. Ron threw the Ravenclaw table one more glare for luck and resumed his own place in the conversation.

..:..:..:..:..

That night, when Harry and Ron were getting ready for bed, Harry overheard Dean and Seamus talking about Michael Corner on the stairs to the common room, reminding him of the incident in the hall.

"I saw that thing you did to Michael at dinner by the way" he commented, smiling in remembrance, prompting an answering grin to creep over Ron's face, who gave a snort of laughter.

"I was just showing the creep what'll happen if he keeps thinking he can mess with my sister. He's got guts I'll admit, being so obvious about coming to bother Ginny right in front of me, but that just gives me something to tear out of him and use as rope to hang him by." Ron's grin turned wicked.

"You're lucky the girls didn't notice." Harry pointed out, pulling his t-shirt over his head and messing his hair up even further.

"I know. I don't see why they'd get all annoyed at me for doing it though. I mean, seriously, they can't expect me to sit by and watch someone act like a complete git towards them. What kind of brother or friend would I be then? I'll tell you: a crap one."

"Nah, I think they'd appreciate it on some level. It's probably more a case of wounded pride that they didn't fend off the bad guy for themselves if you know what I mean. They're hardly going to be annoyed at you for wanting to look out for them."

Harry sat down on his bed.

"Well, what can I say, I just want to make sure people treat them right. Our girls are special." Harry agreed with Ron silently, knowing that the friendship their group of friends shared was unparalleled by anyone else they knew. And the whole school knew it too.

Ron finished getting changed into his pyjamas and stood looking at Harry for a second before he finally poked him in the stomach.

"How come you're so fit? It's not fair! I play Quidditch all the time at home and I don't have abs like that. What the bleeding hell makes you so special?"

Harry laughed at his grumbling comment and rubbed the spot where he had poked his stomach.

"Why Ron, are you jealous? Honestly though, I'm obviously going to have better muscles than you if I spend pretty much every second of my holidays doing something active while you spend your time lazing around and trying to avoid homework when you aren't playing Quidditch, which, let's face it, isn't exactly much of a work-out, really." Harry teased his friend.

"Lazing? I'll give you lazing!" Ron shook his fist at Harry in mock anger. "And I doubt you do that much more compared to me, it's not like I don't do anything while I'm at home y'know! It's hard work living in a big family like ours!"

"Yeah, well, the Dursleys made me get a job over the past few summers doing a lot of heavy lifting and stuff. I lost that job though so this summer past I got another one in a fitness suite. 'Nuff said really." Harry shrugged.

Ron looked at Harry askance as he climbed under his covers and made himself comfy.

"They made you get a job? Why?"

Harry climbed into his own bed and took off his bottoms under the covers, kicking them to the bottom of the bed.

"They said I needed to earn my keep so to speak. I give them all my wages and they…look after me…kind of."

Ron looked at him with a confused expression for a moment.

"Is that one of those weird Muggle tradition things I won't understand?"

"…Yeah. Sure."

There was silence for a few moments while they got comfy enough to fall asleep, with Ron giving one more comment before preparing to dive into sleep (it could only possibly be described as diving, as opposed to drifting off to sleep, due to the phenomenal speed Ron always managed this with).

"I don't know why you always sleep naked Harry, but I'm damn glad you don't sleepwalk."

Harry just laughed.

Once Ron had turned away from facing Harry on his bed, Harry lifted his covers up and looked down at his stomach, trying to figure out how serious Ron was being. He trailed his fingers over his abs. He supposed he was really quite toned compared to most of the other boys. A satisfied smile crossed Harry's face at the compliment Ron had paid him, proud that he apparently had a great body. He'd never really thought about trying to stay toned and looking good, it was just chance that had his circumstances resulted in him leading a very active lifestyle. Despite most peoples' assumptions about him based on his clothes and his hair, Harry did care about how he looked.

Secretly he had often been upset about the clothes he had been made to wear when he was younger, and in the present day he commonly felt embarrassed to go out in public dressed like he did. He had learned not to let it show however, because if he did then people picked up on it, which just brought more attention onto his atrocious wardrobe for people to make fun of. So he was thrilled that Ron had said he was fit. It was something good to balance the bad in his appearance.

Keeping in mind that he wasn't working at Hogwarts like he was at "home", Harry made a mental note to make an effort to try and maximise this previously unnoticed asset of his.

It was occurring to him again how important Ron was to him, much like it had at dinnertime with Hermione, and he was lost once more in memories of their first couple of years here together.

He had changed almost as much as Hermione had. He used to be so temperamental, getting under his skin was a piece of cake and it didn't take much to make him fly off the handle. Harry remembered he had been just as desperate as Hermione in first year, except instead of worrying about fitting in and doing well, he was more concerned about proving himself worthy in the wake of his brothers. He wanted nothing more than to be special, to be something more than what he was, something bigger, something better. His hot-headedness made it difficult for him to see things from other people's point of view as well.

Now, however, he was extremely loyal and protective to those he loved, which was easy to see in the small gestures he made like protecting the girls on the sly.

(**A.N. I think this is a saying from around where I live which other people might not have come across before. If not, "on the sly" basically just means sneakily lol**)

It didn't matter what Harry did or who he was, he knew it wouldn't matter because Ron had grown out of throwing temper tantrums. Now he accepted it and tried his hardest to understand it. And he was so much happier now because he was happy with whom he was and he didn't feel like he had to be his brothers but better anymore. He was okay with just being Ron.

Harry felt a surge of affection for his best friends.

"Hey Ron? You asleep yet?"

"No. What's up?"

"I was just thinking…do you still wish you could be like your brothers?" Ron exhaled explosively.

"Whoo, loaded question Harry. Why did you ask that?" Ron turned back over to face Harry with his duvet bunched up under his chin and held in place with his hand under the covers.

"Dunno. I was just thinking. You and Hermione have changed a lot over the years." Harry smiled.

"So have you." Ron's smile had a rather sad quality to it, but Harry's mind repressed it, unwilling to deal with the possible meanings behind it.

"Well?"

"It's a long story."

"Aw, come on! I'm not really tired anyway, you can take all night to explain if you want."

"Urgh, alright. Since you insist." Ron got out from under the covers and climbed onto the bottom of Harry's bed, pulling the curtains around them. Once he was seated comfortably and Harry had sat up too, he began.

"Okay. Well, I guess it all started with Hermione. Well, I guess you were the trigger actually, but Hermione was the driving force. Do you remember that time before the first task in fourth year, when Hermione did really quite bad on one of her tests and was all depressed about it?" Harry nodded.

"Well, when I found out I rubbed her face in it and she got upset about it, especially when she got that letter from her parents saying they expected more from her. So, as you can imagine she wasn't very happy with me and I was really annoyed because I couldn't understand what her problem was, it was just a stupid test in my eyes. I didn't see why she couldn't just be happy, she did perfect in every other test anyway!

"But then I saw her talking to you about it, crying on your shoulder, you know what I mean, and I got so jealous you wouldn't believe. I couldn't see past the fact that everyone seemed to love you so much, like everyone seemed to love my brothers, including Hermione. It was like I was the annoying third wheel or something.

"I confronted Hermione about it eventually. I accused her of fancying you and the both of you going behind my back and everything. And she got _really _mad, seriously, she went freaking mental! She was yelling about how I would never understand because I was such a selfish jerk and she said that you and her were so close to each other, instead of me, because you both knew each other inside-out and you had taken the time to get to know each other at every level of friendship. She said I was so wrapped in 'me, me, me' that I never noticed anything about the two of you. This was a very long explosion by the way, if you couldn't already tell." Ron grinned in his laugh-provoking way, which worked, as it usually did, to get an amused smile out of Harry

"Anyway, yeah, so, she went on saying that if I had known _anything_ about you then I would have known, or at the very least trusted, that you were telling the truth about the Goblet of Fire, instead of showing myself to be the true insensitive prick I was and deserting you at the first opportunity. I was furious with her, and completely in denial. I stopped talking to her for quite a while, I didn't want to believe what she said.

"But she had got me thinking at last. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and I dug out my families' old pensieve and put the memory of the night your name came out of the goblet into it so I could confirm to myself that I was right. Except I was so _completely_ wrong." Ron seemed to cringe at the memory of himself while Harry hung on every word, fascinated with this part of Ron and Hermione's lives he had never known about until now.

"At the time I had been so blinded by jealousy I felt like I'd been stabbed in the back or something as soon as I heard your name. I never even bothered to stop and think. I didn't look at you or ask you or _anything_. And once I looked back at the whole incident in the pensieve I finally _did_ look at you and I could see that you were completely shocked. You didn't even move at first." Ron laughed.

"You should have seen yourself Harry, you went green! I seriously thought you were going to keel over!" Harry gave Ron a playful punch on the arm for teasing him, and Ron rubbed it, pretending to look wounded at his cruelty before becoming serious once more and sighing.

"I felt absolutely horrible after that. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and I sort of realised that I had spent so much time feeling wronged by everyone for not liking me as much as they liked everyone else that I had never bothered to actually _do_ anything worth being liked _for_. I had no idea what to do with myself. So I went and talked to Hermione. Well, I apologised first actually, and asked her to help me figure-out how to fix things. She told me I wasn't the one I needed to apologise to, but she also told me that I just needed to stop worrying so much about myself and my perceived problems and make an effort to actually put myself in other peoples' shoes. I think she said I needed to learn how to feel empathy or something. Then I would understand them and I would actually be giving something back to the relationship instead of just taking all the time. I remember I was dead chuffed actually, she told me I was really funny and the first thing I could do to change things was make up with you and start cheering you up, cos she was useless at it.

"So I went to the first task that day and made up with you as you know and we went from there, but I still felt like I wasn't really any different, you and Hermione were still closer. So I made a point of keeping my eyes open for a chance to prove that I did really care about my friends and family, and finally there was a time where Hermione was really upset because she was really worried about you." Ron deliberately skimmed over this part, though Harry didn't notice his pointed lack of details.

"I noticed she was feeling down and I went and talked to her about it, and I actually _listened_ to her for once, and it was amazing! I'd never felt that…I dunno…needed or important to someone I guess. I think Hermione was surprised about me even noticing let alone caring enough to take the time to talk to her about it and reassure her. But I did and I think that's more or less around the time where I started getting more involved in the lives of the people I considered close to me, and less preoccupied with who my brothers were close with. What need did I have for what they had when I had my own life to live and be happy with?

"That's basically the story. I'm glad Hermione took the time to try and help me become a better person though. Other people wouldn't have believed in me or had the patience she did. There, happy now?"

"Yeah. I'm just…I can't believe I never noticed any of that happening!"

"Oh, you did. Me and Hermione just played it off as a tiny little thing like having a bad day or something whenever you picked up on the tension or me feeling out of sorts. There was no way we were convincing you everything was okay so we just had to tell a few white lies and downplay it a bit."

"Well, why didn't you just tell me?"

"…I don't know." Ron looked thoroughly confused. "I guess…I think it was just something I needed to figure it out on my own. Hermione pushed me in the right direction but the rest was up to me. And I'm much happier for having figured it all out. But I'm going to sleep now, that was _way_ too long a story for this time of night." Ron said, a yawn taking control of his mouth before he pulled back the curtains around Harry's bed and climbed into his own. As the pair of boys said their goodnights, both were thinking back on the past.

Harry had been doing that a lot lately. Thinking about his friends. Growth. Development. The process of maturing. It was all something he would miss out on in some way or another.

..:..:..:..

Harry couldn't move.

He couldn't talk either.

He was frozen by the intense grip this latest headache had on him. It was the most painful yet. It struck him suddenly in the middle of potions class, when he had been getting some more armadillo bile from the potions cupboard, and boy did it like to throw it's weight around in his head.

The glass bottle he had been carrying fell out of his grasp and smashed on the floor while he grabbed the desk beside him with one hand, his knuckles turning white with the strength of his grip, and used the other to hold his head, his eyes closed. It took every drop of willpower he had to get through the ruthless bout of pain, the tiny squeak of distress escaping his throat acting as the only indication he gave vocally that something was wrong.

People were asking him what was wrong, and Professor Snape now stood beside him, demanding an explanation.

But Harry had no energy to spare in order to reply right now. He focused on breathing deeply instead, his brow creased and his eyes squeezed tightly closed. When the pain didn't fade after the initial explosion however, he couldn't help the desperate whine that escaped his throat. His fingers tightened their grip in response, pulling on his hair slightly, and he hunched his shoulders slightly by tensing them up completely. His body trembled with pain and the effort it took to withstand it.

Then, finally, it was over.

Everyone looked at Draco Malfoy askance while he stood there with his wand in one hand and a handful of Harry's shirt in the other as he lowered him to the ground next to his desk, which also happened to be the desk Harry had been using as support. He had just grabbed Harry's shirt and stupefied him.

He looked back at them all and gave a slight shrug.

"What? It's not like any of you lot were doing anything. I'd rather not spend my potions period watching Potter have a spaz attack, thank you very much. Now, can we please get back to the potion? I think his interruption ruined it." Draco scowled as he stirred his potion.

"Screw you Malfoy! Only you would think of your potion after something like that! If it was you, you'd expect everyone to be falling over themselves with worry!" Hermione snarled, looking more than shaken by Harry's episode.

"That is enough Miss Granger. You can clean up this mess for that little outburst there. And Mr. Malfoy, as you were the one to stun him you can be the one to take him to the hospital wing. I refuse to lug the boy around the castle."

"But Professor - !"

"No arguments, Mr. Malfoy. Go." Snape said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

Both of the teenagers scowled at their potions master and set about doing what they were told, though Hermione couldn't resist telling Malfoy that if he dared do anything to Harry he'd be in for it, to which the boy just rolled his eyes and sneered at her.

Draco sighed and bent down, wondering how on earth he was supposed to pick the boy up. Eventually, he placed his hand under Harry's head and lifted him up so that he was in a sitting position with his other arm around his back. Once he'd done this he positioned the arm closest to Harry's head around the back of his neck, so that his head was supported, and then under his arm, pulling him in close to his chest so that Harry's head rested against him. Once he'd done this he used his other arm to scoop under Harry's legs at the knee and lift them up a little so that they were bent in an upside down "V" position.

Then he got stuck. He was in position. But he didn't know how to go from kneeling to standing without dropping Potter.

"Er…Blaise? A hand here please?"

Blaise laughed at him. "I wondered when you would ask."

The boy knelt down on the other side of Harry and placed a hand under Harry's legs along with Draco's, and another around Harry's back.

"Alright, one, two, three!" Both boys stood at the same time with Blaise taking some of the weight and steadying Harry so that he didn't fall out of Draco's arms.

Draco began his journey to the hospital wing as he tried not to think about the fact that he was carrying his opponent in his arms, like some kind of simpering prince, carrying his princess off into The-Light-Of-Happily-Ever-Afters. It was a concept he and Blaise had come up with during their usual playful banter, with the aim to tease Pansy for actually liking the pure _cheesiness_ that muggle fairy tales churned out. Looking down at the boy in his arms Draco couldn't help but feel curious about what he might see, especially with the opportunity to study Potter without him knowing he was being watched.

It was kind of creepy to see Harry looking so vulnerable, thought Draco. Every time they had an encounter he was nothing but passion and energy, unwavering and strong, even in the face of Draco's most terrible insults.

It was one of the things Draco loved most about fighting with him. He actually presented a challenge. He felt guilty about arguing with other people because it always ended with him winning and the other person upset, it was too easy really.

But when he argued with Harry he could let go and stop thinking about how hurtful anything he might say would be because he knew it would all turn out alright in the end. Harry always bounced back and he never lost his animation. And best of all, he could keep up with Draco for wit and smart-ass comebacks. Most people were too intimidated by him to have their brain functioning enough to think of anything worth saying back to him in the heat of an argument.

It was kind of a relief to be able to do that with someone, because it let Draco throw out every angry and stressed feeling he had. It was a bit ironic really. That he would seek out an argument for the sake of stress relief when arguments and fights were one of the things people found most stressful.

He was almost at the hospital wing by now and looked down at the classmate in his arms. He was surprisingly light; you wouldn't guess his size and weight just looking at him. It was damn near impossible with the hideous excuse for clothes he wore.

The girls all said it gave him a manly, rugged kind of vibe, which they seemed to find extremely attractive. They liked a guy who could get down and dirty apparently, a guy who had no qualms about getting some hard work done using his hands, and his clothes most definitely suggested that he did.

He could see what they meant if he was going to be completely honest with himself but he had to admit there was a serious downfall to the clothes, and that was the fact that they did nothing for him. Most people had at least one top or pair of trousers or something that showed off one of their best features. But those clothes hid absolutely everything.

Draco snorted.

The boy was completely clueless really, he was the boy-who-lived, he had serious potential to be the sweet-heart to every girl in the freaking school, but did he even try and look good? To catch their attention or anything?

Nope.

Idiot.

It wasn't like every girl didn't fancy him already. It was quite disgusting really. Even the Slytherin girls wished on some level that they were one of those important to him. He was just that _nice _to everyone. It was easy to see that he made you feel special if he deemed you worthy of giving you the time of day.

Well, maybe not so much anymore. For the last couple of years it was like Potter had faded entirely. Draco remembered he had been insanely touchy-feely with his friends. He was constantly hugging that Granger girl, and even the guys had gotten used to Harry flinging an arm around their shoulders and giving them a big kiss on the head while he joked around. Not the soft, sweet kind he would give all the girls, more like the kind of kiss that would go along with a cheesy grin before he ran off to do something crazy. And that was a fairly common occurrence. He was always doing something amusing, and he was the centre of attention a lot of the time.

Recently however he had been keeping a bit of a low profile. His vibrancy and enthusiasm for life had dimmed, he stopped showering affection on anyone and everyone he liked, he talked less and less, and his laughs and smiles weren't the same either.

Draco remembered when he used to smile widely and easily, how when he laughed he did it with everything he had, letting go completely in the expression of his happiness and amusement.

Draco tried to pinpoint when Harry's spirited nature had begun to diminish. It had been a couple of years ago he thought. Around the time Cedric Diggory had died.

What the hell was up with him anyway? It had been ages since Harry had done much except go through the motions of life. Or, act normal at least. Anyone else observing him wouldn't see any difference, thinking he was acting just as any normal person would, but those who knew him would know that Harry was normally on a whole other level of living compared to others in reality. Harry acting like any other normal person was the equivalent to Harry on a downer. And now there was something wrong with him.

This recent incident in potions was probably connected to that time Pomfrey came to potions, Draco would bet on it. He had actually forgotten that incident, but it came back to him now.

He deposited Harry on the bed and met Pomfrey's eyes as she crossed the room to the bed he was stood at.

"I'm not sure what happened, he just dropped what he was holding and held his head. He wasn't responding and whatever was wrong didn't seem to be getting better so I stupefied him."

Poppy nodded and brushed Harry's hair out of his face.

"Thank you for bringing him Mr Malfoy, you can go."

"Right. Bye." Draco tried to linger as long as possible so that he could see what Poppy did to treat Harry, if she used a potion he recognised maybe he could figure out what was wrong with him. But Poppy just made Harry comfortable and left him to sleep.

Draco left, disappointed that he couldn't figure out this new mystery of what was wrong with Potter.

..:..:..:..

There was no way Harry could deny it now. Whether he liked it or not, whether he was ready for it or not, death was charging at him at a merciless pace, and there was nothing he could do about it. In two years he would be gone from this world, his chance at life expired, and could he truly say he was happy with that?

He felt cheated that he couldn't be a part of his friends' lives anymore, but he was just realising that his death meant the end of his own chance at life. He was so proud of the people they were becoming, but where was his own growth and development?

Harry lay on his stomach along the Gryffindor couch, staring at one of his schoolbooks but getting no reading done.

After spending so long remembering everyone else as they used to be and feeling pleased for them at how far they had come since then, he couldn't help but take a trip down his own memory lane. What he found left him feeling utterly confused as the weight of his realisation settled around him.

While his friends had grown with the life experience they gained, all he could see for himself was _decay_. He had spent the past two years floating through life as though things would never change while everyone around him grew up.

He could remember when he was in primary school, strumming away happily on a school guitar and making up songs to pass the break and lunch hour away. He'd been determined to learn how to play the instruments, and passionate about making music, because it was something that brought a lonely boy some joy into the terrifying world around him.

He was quite good at music in school actually. Art too, but he hadn't gotten quite the same buzz out of it in comparison to his music. The best thing about it was that the Dursleys couldn't care less about the creative subjects, so he was allowed to excel at them.

He smiled sadly as he remembered practicing as much as he could every day at school. His determination had paid off eventually when he could play the guitar, piano and drums extremely well and knew the basics of a number of other instruments. His best instrument of all, however, was his voice.

When was last time he had sat down at a piano, or wrote a song? Or, for that matter, and most importantly, when was the last time he felt that simple, pure happiness?

If he could feel like that at a time when he had no one to turn to, why couldn't he feel like that now? Maybe he _had_ grown up in a manner of speaking, maybe he had grown too old and understood too much to ever feel like that again.

But if that were true, why was it he still felt so stunted? It was like he was trapped on all sides so that any kind of emotional growth and development was prevented.

He couldn't even remember when he had started feeling like this, he just knew it had been that way for a long time and he never would have acknowledged it if it weren't for the cancer. And he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.

..:..:..:..

Three weeks had gone by since Poppy had discovered Harry's tumour and she believed it was finally beginning to sink in. She'd had enough time to think Harry's situation through, and there were some things she knew she had to deal with, including his reaction to the horrible news.

But that would come later.

First she needed to have a difficult conversation with Severus, which was why she was now stood in the doorway of his personal potions lab. He shot her a glance of acknowledgement, before turning back to the plant he was currently picking leaves from and eyeing the simmering potion on his desk every few seconds.

"I haven't yet finished that Pepper-Up potion, it still needs to stand a little longer. I will bring it to you tomorrow."

"That's not why I'm here. I--"

"In that case I'll get started on the burn salve once I'm finished this, I thought you'd be running low by now."

"Severus, I'm not here about potions. Well, not for the hospital wing anyway. I need to speak with you."

His hand slowed in its journey from the stirring rod to the next ingredient. He turned to look at her for a few seconds and seemed to find whatever it was he was searching for.

"I won't be long in bringing this to a stage where it can be left to sit. If you find yourself a seat in my office, I can be with you fairly soon."

Poppy gave him a small smile, thankful he was a perceptive enough man that she didn't have to spell out that the topic of conversation she had intended was one she considered important. Urgent even.

It wasn't long before he appeared on the threshold between lab and office, wiping his hands on a cloth and making his way around his desk to take a seat. Once he was settled and sufficiently potions-ingredient free, he indicated he was listening and that Poppy should begin her explanation of what she wanted of him.

"I was wondering if you could come up with any possibilities for a potion capable of breaking, or at least bending, The Healers Oath?"

The man raised an eyebrow, causing Poppy to blush as she realised how this would probably look.

"And why would you feel the need to do that?"

"I can't tell you without breaking it first"

"So it's the confidentiality component you wish to break then." Severus frowned. "As I'm sure you are aware, Poppy, The Healer's Oath exists for a reason. I can't think of a good reason you might have for wanting to be free of it."

Poppy clasped her hands in front of her in her lap in an effort to remain calm when it seemed as though Severus did not seem particularly willing to help her.

"Of course they exist for a reason. It is for that specific reason I am interested in the possibility of breaking it in the first place! My duty as a healer, and as someone who took that oath more seriously than I would my marriage vows, is to see to it that anyone under my care does not come to any unnecessary harm if it is within my power to prevent it. But that vow is stopping me from doing so! By breaking it, I would _really_ be ensuring the purpose for it was recognised and respected!"

"While that is undoubtedly the most animated I have ever seen you in putting your point across, I can't help but be wary here Poppy. If there is a problem with one of the students that worries you, why not just go to their parents, or alternatively, should the parents be the problem, The Oath's Exception? If it is a student with problems involving abusive parents then Dumbledore will no doubt be The Oath's choice of Exception as he is the most responsible for their care beyond their guardians at this time, what need do you have to break healer-patient confidentiality beyond that? You know as well as I do that it is _highly_ unethical to do what you are asking of me. Especially considering that you can't, apparently, give me your reasons for doing so."

"Then I guess you will have to make the decision based on nothing more than what you know of me and what reasons you believe I would and wouldn't do this for."

Severus sighed and placed his chin in his hands with his elbows on the desk, a far-away look coming over him as he contemplated this predicament. After a rather long wait, he eventually seemed to make up his mind, giving Poppy a stern look as he delivered his verdict.

"Consider yourself lucky that I think of you as a more than trustworthy woman. I will begin work immediately. I have a few theories beginning to form already."

Poppy seemed to sag in her chair with the release of tension in her muscles at his decision.

"Thank you Severus, I promise you won't regret this. It's you I wish to speak to about the matter with actually, I feel you could be a great help in the given situation." Severus looked slightly surprised.

"Oh. Well, I will inform you as soon as I think I have a working formula. Goodbye." Replied Severus as the pair stood from their seats.

Poppy smiled a wide, relieved grin.

"Thanks again. You've done the right thing here." She said, before leaving the potions master to his complicated formulas and ingredient lists, closing the door softly behind her.

Now all she had to do was deal with Harry.

She would understand if Harry had been profoundly upset at the news of his cancer, but she had the sneaking suspicion that he was in denial. Three weeks was enough time for the reality of his situation to hit home, so shouldn't he have made some kind of reaction by now? The only thing slightly different she could make out was that he spent a lot more time just sitting and observing those around him, looking contemplative, but not necessarily definitely sad or definitely happy. As far as she could tell her revelation hadn't put him up or down overall.

That worried her.

..:..:..:..

Harry chewed his lip, feeling utterly conflicted staring at the hospital wing doors.

Should he go in, or should he leave?

He had done a lot of thinking lately, but despite his struggles he hadn't managed to figure anything out. Instead it seemed like all he had managed to do was trigger a chain of other thoughts and realisations in a domino-like effect, which left him completely confused and unsure.

He felt like he needed to run his thoughts by someone else. He really wanted to talk to Poppy, but he didn't want to seem like some kind of wishy-washy drama-queen that got all emotional over something completely insignificant just for attention, whether it was consciously or subconsciously. What if she just got annoyed at him for complaining and moaning at her all the time when, in reality, other people had it much worse than him?

And besides, what obligation did she have to listen to him? He knew that they were closer than the other students she healed, but that didn't change the fact that she was just a healer. It wasn't her job to act as an agony aunt for him. He really should be talking to his friends about this. Except he couldn't because there was no way he was telling them, they would be too upset.

But still, that didn't mean he could pile it all on Poppy, it simply wasn't fair. He should just leave; it was stupid to come in the first place really. He needed to learn to deal with things himself.

Harry turned away from the doors in front of him and took two steps, but was halted as he made his third by the sound of the door behind him clicking as it was opened. He whirled round to find Poppy blinking at him in surprise.

Poppy had been trying to decide how she could go about dealing with Harry's attitude to his illness and bustling about the every-day odd jobs to be found in a hospital wing when she had heard footsteps outside the hospital wing door. She had continued changing the bedclothes on the last bed for a further minute, however, without hearing them continue on past the door. Unable to quell the feeling of curiosity, she went to investigate.

When she opened the door she was rather surprised, but happy, to see Harry turn around from beginning to walk back the way he must have come. When she could see his face clearly however she saw the fragile look in his eyes that spoke of uncertainty. She gave him a pointedly happy grin.

"Oh it's you Harry! I thought I heard someone out here, is there something I can help with?"

"Em, nah, it's fine, I was just…I mean…I didn't…I was just going to…" Harry was fidgeting awkwardly in place, not knowing what to give as an excuse for being there, to which Poppy's smile softened.

"Would you like to come help me with restocking the potions shelves? I'm afraid I have an awful lot to do, I could use a hand." Harry finally relaxed a little and gave a small smile to the healer, seeing she wasn't suspicious or annoyed at finding him there. Instead she seemed rather cheerful at getting the opportunity to ask him if he wanted to help her in the hospital wing.

"Sure, I'd love to. I'm a bit bored anyway, I guess."

Poppy stepped back from the door so that her outstretched arm held the door open, allowing Harry to duck inside through the space between her body and the door.

"Just over here Harry. I need to bottle a lot of the potions first so why don't you do that and then I can label the bottles as we go along."

Harry stepped up to the row of cauldrons containing differently coloured potions, some of which had the consistency of water while others were more like sludge. There were even some that looked more like colourful creams than potions. Poppy directed him to the cauldron on the end full of a smooth, creamy pink liquid similar to how a strawberry smoothie would look, except without the seeds.

"What's this for?" Harry asked, picking up the ladle and swirling the contents around to get a better feel for the texture.

"Pepper-Up potion. This is my last cauldron actually; Severus is making more for me."

"Does he make all of the potions for the hospital wing?"

"Yes, we're very lucky for it too. Most of you children take it for granted but you just wouldn't get the same standard anywhere else. Few people are willing to put in the time and effort it takes to perfect each potion to the fullest extent of its potential effects like he does."

"Hey! I am _not_ a kid!" Harry exclaimed and wrinkled his nose in distaste at the implication that he was still a child, gaining a giggle from Poppy at his stereotypical, teenage response.

Harry held back his usual derogatory reply regarding Severus though. It had become habit for him to dismiss any of the potions master's good qualities, but who was he to deny the man's innate talent and passion for potions, really? He may be a judgemental and bitter old man, but you couldn't really avoid the fact that he had a knack for developing seemingly impossible to invent potions. He could probably do anything if he set his mind to it.

He had invented the Wolfsbane potion, for example.

And so, maybe he could create a cure for cancer…

If people like him could work so hard just to make other peoples' lives that little bit easier, or even to save lives entirely, then Harry felt like he really had no right to pass judgement that they had nothing about them that was worth the effort of getting to know.

Harry had never had reason to consider it before now, but it was people like Severus who could end up saving his life. There was just no way he could continue to walk around thinking that things were as simple as "He's mean and evil", and it was for this reason his professor would have his respect. He still didn't like Snape, unkind as he was. But Harry had one of life's lessons staring him in the face, and he wasn't one to ignore it. So he would take it on board, and stop seeing things in the clear cut shades of black and white. He would no longer assume he knew anything about people until he had at least made an effort to understand.

Wasn't it one of the things he himself hated most about being famous? That people took one look and thought they knew everything? That they could write a book telling his life story and everything he had ever felt?

Poppy saw the intense quality in Harry's gaze and made an effort to snap him out of it.

"Right then, we'll start at this end and work our way along then shall we?"

"Sure." Harry replied, blinking away his train of thought and picking up the ladle to pour some of the potion into one of the empty bottles, which were stored in boxes under the table. Poppy stood next to him, waiting to label the potion when Harry handed it to her for going onto the shelf, and began their usual form of casual banter and easy conversation, though there was a while which wasn't so easy when they talked over Harry's newfound thoughts and opinions on the potions master.

..:..:..:..

Later that evening Harry collapsed with no amount of grace onto the nearest hospital bed. He had been glad for the opportunity to spend some time with Poppy again. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed how easy he found it to relax around her. She never seemed too demanding of him and he knew he didn't have to worry about saying something and have her think it was stupid.

Harry sighed and sat up on the edge of the bed at the reminder of why he had been here in the first place, and how he'd hesitated to walk through the door in his uncertainty.

He should have had more faith in her.

Poppy finished cleaning up their mess and came and sat down beside him.

"What's bothering you Harry? You know you can talk to me about anything." Poppy placed her arm around Harry's shoulders and pulled him in closer to her so that his head rested on her shoulder. Harry bit his lip.

"I think…" Harry's began, unsure. "I think that I've been depressed for so long that it's like I've forgotten how it feels to be really happy or even normal anymore. There are times that I feel a moment of amusement something, like when someone makes a joke and I find it funny and laugh, but it always fades quickly. Y'know? I never just feel generally content, or happy, or at peace like everyone else. It's like that's their default but my default is to feel like crap and like I really can't be bothered with anything anymore. But it wasn't always like that. I used to be like them. And now…I might never get the chance to find myself again."

Poppy moved back a little and pulled Harry down so that his head lay in her lap and cast a warning spell on the hospital wing doors. Then she began running her fingers through Harry's hair in a comforting gesture while she thought on what Harry had said.

Harry meanwhile could feel himself getting more and more upset. He didn't really understand it himself, but for some reason he couldn't identify he always felt fine until he had to talk about something to someone, and now he had told Poppy and she was acting all reassuring and comforting. It was almost as though he subconsciously thought that if he didn't talk about it then no one could react sympathetically, and if no one did that then he could pretend to himself that it really wasn't a big deal and he was being ridiculous. Then the problem didn't seem so bad anymore.

But he had told Poppy, and now the emotion came.

The first tear landed on Poppy's skirt as Harry's face crumpled up in an effort to keep them at bay, his fingers held onto Poppy's skirt at the knee.

Poppy rubbed Harry's arm and made soft reassuring noises, telling Harry just to let it out. It was far healthier than to try and bottle it up and she would just worry if he did.

With her coaxing, Harry let the tears run and the sobs tore through him, his grasp on her skirt death-like in its strength.

When the tears no longer flowed and Harry's body more shivered than heaved Poppy spoke once more.

"I can see you haven't been very happy Harry, and I know the cancer has scared you into realising that you're missing something you don't want to die without. But that doesn't mean it is unattainable. It simply means that you haven't been looking for it until now. Do you understand?" Poppy looked down at the distressed boy on her lap, "Now you can go out there and do what you have to do, find what you need to find, and feel what you need to feel. Don't think of death as a reason you _can't_ do many things. Make it a reason you _will_ do them, instead of letting it bring you down. You have time left yet, spend it well and I believe you will find what it is that you speak of."

There was a pause where Harry considered her words.

"I guess…it's all about choices, isn't it? Dumbledore said something like that to me once. He said that it's our choices that make us who we are. So, I just have to make the choice between being a victim, or twisting this to make it positive, to become stronger, right?"

Poppy smiled.

"That's a very good way of looking at it Harry. And I think it's the key to you solving your problem."

"Well…we'll find out soon enough then I suppose…"

End Chapter


	3. Exposure of Betrayal

Draco stepped into his common room at the end of the day and was immediately met with the kind of knowing looks that made it e

**Disclaimer:** See 1st chapter :)

**Author's Note:** This chapter has **only been beta-ed by one of my betas**. I was impatient to post this because I don't like there being a lot of time between my updates but I'm still waiting for my other beta. So I decided to just post this while I wait on a reply from her whether or not she still feels she has the time to beta for me :) I'm quite demanding on deadlines unfortunately, which is good for you guys but not so good for lovely betas XD Anyway, thank you to _**Gianna aka lunaparvulus**_ for beta-ing this chapter and the last, and _**babygrl258 **_for beta-ing the last chapter.

My **e-mail** didn't display properly in the last chapter but it displays fine on my profile if you still want to add me :)

**Thank you** loads to everyone who reviewed, I hope the replies were to your satisfaction D I've heard from other author's that it's really helpful when reviewers keep a review window open as they read so that they can say what they like, what they don't, more or less every thought as they go through the chapter so that they haven't just forgotten by the time they get to the end of the chapter lol :P I would very much appreciate it if you could take the time to do this for me too, I'm just a first-fic-author and I'm sure I could benefit from any suggestions/criticism you can give me :D

This chapter is **5702 words** without my rambling, see my **progress log** for details on chapter 4 and it's progress :)

I give up on the not having a lot of authors' notes. It's just not in my nature to be a girl of few words if I feel something needs to be said. And I always do XD I'll at least bold the important words so that people can see the basic theme of the text and decide if they want to read or not by just seeing the bolded words. I feel like I'm forgetting something but I can't think what. Meh. I'll just post and cry into my pillow if I remember something later I meant to put in here XD

ONWARDS! D

Chapter 3 – Exposure of Betrayal.

Draco stepped into his common room at the end of the day and was immediately met with the kind of knowing looks that made it essential he should find out what exactly it was they thought they had on him.

As soon as possible.

He eyed his friends with a suspicious look.

"What?" He drew the word out, making his doubt clear, his eyes still narrowed. Blaise Zabini's eyes twinkled with a hidden laughter as he replied casually.

"Oh, nothing really. I was just telling the guys that you carried Potter to the hospital wing during potions."

Draco knew Blaise was dangling the source of their amusement right in front of his eyes, yet he couldn't see it.

"…so? Snape made me…" Pansy was the next one to speak, through her smile.

"Oh you poor baby, did you lose your wand? Do you need me to levitate anything for you perhaps?"

Finally it clicked.

"Oh my God! I completely forgot about my wand!" Blaise, Pansy and Millicent all burst out laughing, as Draco finally understood what they were getting at.

"Don't pretend Draco, we understand."

"What the hell, Millie? I genuinely just forgot about my wand! Really…Oh my God this is so embarrassing!"

"It's okay hun, we know you're not getting any. Who can blame you for wanting to carry Potter like a muggle fire-fighter? You can admit it and we'll be totally okay with it. We know the truth, there's no use trying to hide it from us! He's your perfect match!" Pansy sniggered as the rest of the group enjoyed a bout of hysterics at her teasing. Draco groaned and plopped himself down into the space left on the couch.

"Oh shut UP about that already, I can't believe you're all still banging on about it! That stupid quiz is nonsense, it just spits out any random name!"

"Hey! My quiz is NOT nonsense thank you very much! I'll have you know it calculates who your best match is based on how you answered the questions. Even YOU admitted that logically Potter is the best choice based on your answers. What happened to being able to look at things objectively, huh?"

"That was before I knew you'd all make it some kind of completely _un-funny_ joke that you absolutely refuse to let go of. Seriously, you're like a starving rabid dog chewing on a piece of meat the way you cling to it."

"Aw, come on Draco, even you have to admit it's provided something a little less boring and monotonous to do here for once. Potter-spying is fun! And just think, we never would have noticed HALF the stuff we have if we hadn't started that little joke just to annoy you." Blaise joined in.

"It was hardly a joke! You started stalking the boy just to point out all of the things I would love in a boyfriend that he had or was! You know what? Maybe _you're_ gay as well, Blaise. Maybe all of you fancy him. I bet that's where this obsession has come from." Draco nodded conclusively, as though this would make it so.

"Nah, he's just interesting. He may be a closed-minded, prejudiced little prick as well, but I'll give him that at least. Think about it, whenever he's been brought up as a topic of conversation, have we ever gotten bored of it? Was it ever stopped or finished simply because we ran out of things to say? No. Objectively Draco, objective view!"

"Okay, okay. I concede defeat! Potter is supremely interesting and _would_ be the perfect guy, which is why I go along with your stupid Potter-themed insanities, if it weren't for the _massively huge_ fact that you are all ignoring that he_ hates Slytherins _and thinks we're all_ evil! _For no reason! He's just as bad as every other discriminating person who dismisses us without a second thought, and the fact you lot are even entertaining the thought that anyone outside of slytherin could understand or accept us is absurd."

"Urgh, mood killer. Sometimes it's nice to pretend that we're part of their world too you know. Then maybe our options would be a little less limited." Millie glanced at the people around the room. "I feel sorry for you Draco. No wonder you don't get any action with this lot as your choices. And that's assuming everyone else is gay too!" Pansy giggled at her friends joke.

"Keep it down would you! You'd think you were trying to broadcast my sexuality to everyone here!" Draco hissed.

Pansy sighed and sat down, everyone much calmer with Draco's harsh words and tone. Millicent was the first to break the silence.

"Do you fancy anyone yet? There must be someone by now!"

"No. There's honestly no one that's really caught my interest."

"I think your standards are way too high. Especially considering your sexuality is in the minority." Blaise chipped in.

"Maybe… Oi, why didn't you point out to me I could levitate Potter when I was messing about trying to lift him?"

"Same reason as everyone else probably."

"And that was…what exactly…?"

"It was way too much fun watching you struggle, knowing that the great, wizarding pureblood Malfoy forgot his wand like some kind of muggle-born, to tell you." Blaise's grin did nothing but annoy Draco, who just blinked at him before rising out of the chair and making his way down the corridor to the boys dorms.

"I have homework to do."

..:..:..:..:..:..

Harry scowled resentfully at his potions textbook. He tried to understand, really, he did, but how on earth could a drop of urine from a fire salamander have one effect on a tiny volume of potion, and the exact same effect on a huge volume of potion, within the exact same time limit? Shouldn't one drop have less effect or take longer to get an effect at all on a larger volume of potion in comparison to a smaller volume of potion?

Harry just felt like crying with frustration at this point. He hated having to struggle so hard in his potions class. He knew he wasn't stupid, really, he could do this, but for some reason potions just eluded him. He tried so hard and never seemed to get anywhere. He didn't mind not doing very well in his other classes, because he knew he could be a million times better at them if he really wanted to. That is, if he actually worked hard at it, though he'd never really done so what with other things seeming much more important to him in life. Like surviving the annual dramas that seemed to bloom around him in surprisingly intense bursts.

Before Harry could get to the stage where he was pulling out his hair trying to write an essay about something that was complete nonsense to him, he was, thankfully, distracted by the opening of the portrait hole briefly as he turned to see who it was stepping into the common room.

Ginny was the one who strode through the hole and walked briskly up the stairs to her dormitory, making no eye contact with Harry and offering no greetings to her brother or her friends.

Something must be up.

"Hey guys, I'm going to go speak to Ginny for a while, I need a break for a bit I think."

"'Kay, make sure you do finish that essay though Harry."

"Don't worry 'Mione, I will."

"Are you going up to her dorm?"

"Yep."

"Show off." Ron rolled his eyes jokingly as Harry laughed.

"Just because _you_ can't make it without falling" Harry made the rather childish gesture of sticking his tongue out at Ron, though he neglected the chant of "Naaaah, naaaah, nah, naaaah, naaaah."

Harry climbed out of his seat and made his way over to the stairs up to the girls' dorm as his friends had a bit of a chuckle at his antics and went back to their homework. He was the only boy capable of getting into the girls dorms as he was the only one with the strength and endurance to manage the climb up the staircase. There had been a competition of sorts amongst the boys one evening which had involved all of them trying to get up to the dorms and failing miserably as their strength failed them and they fell onto the stairs, activating the spell to turn them into a slide. There had been much hilarity as I'm sure you can imagine, especially amongst the spectator girls, though there was plenty of cheering when Harry managed what had seemed impossible.

When Harry reached the bottom of the stairs he placed both hands high up on the walls on either side of him at the entrance and jumped up, placing each of his feet on the walls on as well, in order to support his weight. He now had a hand and a foot on each wall. He then placed all of his weight onto his arms and swung his legs further forward on the wall. When he had them securely in place against the walls he then placed most of his weight back on his legs to hold him up off of the floor as he shimmied his hands forward so that his body was straight up and down once more instead of his upper half angled backwards. He repeated this until he had climbed his way up the staircase by distributing his weight between the two walls on either side of the stairs to keep him off of the floor, and dropped down in front of Ginny's dormitory. (1)

Harry knocked on Ginny's door to let her know he was coming in and opened it quietly and slowly so she would have time to duck for cover if he she was getting changed. What he found when he stepped inside was Ginny lying on her stomach on her bed, her head in a pillow as she cried, causing his brow to crease in concern. He made his way across to the bed, climbing on it next to her and stroked up and down her back with his hand in a gesture of comfort.

"What's up Gin? If you tell me I'll make sure and do everything I can to fix it, I promise. Come on, you can talk to me." He coaxed until Ginny rolled onto her side so that she was facing him, prompting Harry to lie down beside her, wipe away her tears and stroke her hair.

"Harry?" she seemed surprised.

"In the flesh." Harry smiled at her.

Ginny said nothing more, but lunged into Harry's inviting arms and broke down into fresh sobs as she clung to him tightly, just basking in his caring attention. It had been so long since Harry had begun to drift away from his friends, it felt like coming home again to have him come to her to look after her. She had missed the comfort he offered.

When she had once more begun to calm down Harry asked what was wrong again, using the same soft tones he always used when concerned about someone.

"Urgh. It's stupid really."

"Of course it's not stupid, it has you upset doesn't it?"

"It's just…Michael. I mean, I know he's just being a prick and I should ignore him, and I do most of the time, but, you know, sometimes it's just hard to ignore some of the things he says."

"He _still_ hasn't backed off?" Harry questioned incredulously.

"Not really. Why, should he have backed off by now?" Ginny's tone was coloured with confusion.

"Oh, um, I guess I didn't expect him to still be at it after all this time…Ginny, I'm really sorry." Ginny gave him a surprised look at the sincere, sad quality to his voice.

"What on earth for? You've done nothing wrong."

"I know, but that's the point really. I should have done something about Michael before now. I'm sorry that I haven't really been there for you for so long. It's been ages since we really talked about anything really deep or important. It's been ages since we did anything really fun as well actually, isn't it?"

"Well…you've had a lot going on Harry. I understand, really, I do. It's not your fault at all, I don't blame you for anything."

"That shouldn't matter though. I promise I'll be there for you for anything Ginny, seriously, don't hesitate to come to me, okay? I'll always have time for you. And if I don't, I'll make time. Leave this Corner guy to me too, I'll deal with it, so don't you worry anymore, 'kay? Can you do that for me?" Ginny grinned at him.

"Gladly." And she _was_ glad, that she could pass the issue on to Harry to take care of, because she knew he would deal with everything and she wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

..:..:..:..:..:..

The next day, after a relatively uneventful combination of meals and classes, Harry dumped his bag onto the common room couch and turned around, about to head off to the hospital wing. His head had been aching the past couple of hours and he was due to get the potions Poppy was supposed to be getting in for him today. Hopefully they would help with the headache.

"Harry? Where are you going?"

"Pomfrey has those migraine potions for me in today, I was just going to go get them."

"Oh right. Oh! That reminds me! After that time in potions with the vision you got from Voldemort I went to the library and got some books for you, hang on!" Hermione rummaged around in her bag for a few seconds and finally produced three books with varying titles, each conveying the same concept: Occlumency. Hermione bit her lip nervously as she held them out.

"I know that things didn't go well with you and Snape and that Dumbledore can't teach you, but I figured you could at least try and learn it on your own, you never know after-all, I bet every little bit helps. If it helps stop the visions then that would be great, obviously, though I'd totally understand if you didn't really want to learn it, but still…" Harry cut off her nervous rambling in her uncertainty of how her offering of an attempted solution would be received. During her explanation her hands had slowly brought the books back into her body, clearly showing she thought he wouldn't want them.

"Thanks 'Mione, that was really thoughtful. I'll try and get started as soon as possible." Harry smiled at his friend and gave her a big bear-hug, ignoring the slightly shocked look on her face. His friends seemed to be adopting that look a lot lately.

"Oh. Well, that's great Harry! Just ask me if you're confused about anything, obviously I'm no expert but I might be able to help out in some way, you never know." Harry nodded and placed the books into his bag for safe-keeping until he came back from the hospital wing to put them in his trunk.

"See you guys later."

"Bye Harry" Said Ron and Hermione in conjunction as Harry waved and walked out of the portrait hole.

..:..:..:..:..:..

Poppy seemed rather busy when Harry stepped into the hospital wing. As far as he could tell two third year boys had been involved in a flying accident and she was trying to patch them up. There also appeared to be a tiny first year girl sitting on a bed, all scraped up, and Poppy was trying to divide her attention between the two boys and the crying child.

Harry stepped up to the bed Poppy was currently at and followed her as she moved back over to the upset girl.

"Is there anything I can do that would help?"

"Oh I don't know Harry, I'm not supposed to…" the healer trailed off as she glanced back at the two injured boys whom she hadn't yet finished tending to, and looked back at the little girl, contemplating something. Finally she seemed to make a decision.

"Oh you'll manage just fine I'm sure! It's a simple spell, there's not much that can go wrong." She seemed to be speaking to herself more than Harry, but she then turned to him and spoke once more.

"If I taught you how to heal some minor cuts and scrapes would you be okay to be left to heal Holly while I deal with those two? I'm confident you'll manage but if not, or if you're not comfortable with it, I can do it myself."

"No, that's okay! It'd be really cool to learn to heal something actually, I promise I'll be really careful though, I don't want to hurt her."

"Right, Holly, do you mind if Mr Potter practices healing up some of your scrapes? I'll let him have a go on some learning devices first and if he can manage well enough I'll let him try it on you. Is that okay?" The little girl had fallen silent and just nodded slightly, her eyes wide and bright.

"Right then Harry, this way." Poppy led Harry to the supply cabinet and fished out a bodiless arm, handing it to him. It was an obviously magical contraption, due to the real-flesh feeling of the object, over which Poppy waved her wand to prompt the appearance of a number of cuts and scrapes up the arm in ascending order of size and depth.

"This is a training device for those doing healer apprenticeships Harry. Now, what I want you to do is say the incantation _condotex _over the cut or scrape, and while you are doing that I want you to look at it and imagine the damaged flesh re-growing and merging, and the blood vessels rejoining. Once you've done that I want you to speak the incantation _obvolvocorium_, and imagine a new layer of skin growing and covering over the newly healed flesh while waving your wand over the scrape. Does that make sense? Do you think you can manage that?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Okay, you give it a try on the smallest one first, I'll be back in just a second."

Poppy went off to tend to the boys and Harry looked at the first scrape. He pictured in his head the damaged areas of flesh growing to repair the ragged edges, and even further, until they all met and merged together as he spoke the incantation. The scrape on the arm followed the image in his head, leaving a patch of healed flesh instead of small scratches and abrasions. He then waved his wand slowly over the now bright pink area of open flesh and imagined a thin layer of skin growing over the appropriate area and joining with the rest of the skin, speaking the second incantation in the process. When he was done everything seemed to be all right, though there appeared to be a bruise forming in the area he had healed, causing Harry to frown.

It wasn't supposed to do that.

Harry wanted to try again but he waited until Poppy had come back over to join him and take a look at his first attempt at healing.

"Not bad for a first go Harry! Try again, except this time try and get the blood vessels to re-join and repair as well, that's what's causing the bruising." Harry nodded and brought up his wand to make another attempt, this time making sure to imagine the tiny blood vessels sealing together once more throughout the flesh, as well as the flesh itself growing back together into a healthy and undamaged state. This time, when he was finished there was no sign that anything had ever been wrong with the arm and, after a small wait, no bruises appeared.

"_Very_ well done Harry! It takes most beginner healers a lot of practice to get the hang of healing like that. They find it difficult to imagine it properly in their head because they don't really have any experience or first-hand knowledge on what the healing process truly goes like. It takes a few tries and then once they have the experience of doing it right they know how to properly visualise what needs to be done. Good job on picking it up so quickly!" Poppy was beaming with pride for Harry.

Harry couldn't help but blush, but he grinned shyly at her praise, pleased she was happy with his accomplishment. He thought he had done so well because he knew quite intimately the healing process for cuts and scrapes and burns etc ranging from practically nothing to extremely severe.

"Alright, try the worst one so we can make sure but I think you'll do perfectly fine healing Miss Whyte."

Harry did as she asked and came across no problems, though he noticed that it had taken a lot more concentration and time to be able to _continuously_ imagine the on-going process of growth and repair for the wider area of the wound and the deeper cuts. Poppy did nothing but beam at him and nod her head in approval before leaving him in order to go finish up tending to the younger boys.

Holly had been watching attentively, no longer seeming bothered by her painful looking cuts and scrapes in the face of something as, apparently, fascinating as Harry.

Harry smiled at her.

"Hello Holly. So, what happened that got you all banged up?" She continued to stare at him in a rather child-like manner as he held her arm in his hand and set about visualising, waving and incanting.

"I tripped on the stones outside. I always fall over, my friends say that I'm really clumsy. Are you really going to heal all of my sore bits?" Harry finished the first one and replied.

"Yep. The first one's done already, see?"

"Wow! That's so cool Harry! I wish I could heal stuff! Healers are really smart aren't they? I bet your friend could be a healer. She's really, _really_ smart isn't she?"

"Well I'm sure you could be a healer someday. You just have to try as hard as you can and believe you can do it, no matter what anyone else says."

"You really think so? But my friend says…"

"It doesn't matter what your friend says, if you want it bad enough and you try hard enough I'm positive you'll manage. Don't let anyone else tell you that you can't okay?"

"Okay. I'll try really hard then Harry, I promise!"

"That's all anyone can ask of you." Harry smiled at the girl's enthusiasm and happiness at the idea that she could someday be a healer.

He couldn't be sure but he didn't think he, or anyone else, had been this childish in first year. She acted younger than 11 years old. He was almost done with her cuts and scrapes, with just a few on her face to go. It looked an awful lot like she had fallen face first on those stones.

"You're my new friend." Holly announced firmly out of the blue.

"Really? Why is that?" Harry asked, a spike of amusement shooting through him.

"'cause you're really nice to me. And you can heal all my sore bits…do you want to be my friend?" Holly added on more doubtfully.

"Of course I do! Tell you what, I'll come visit you at your table at dinner some time, how does that sound?"

"Yey!" They girl threw her arms in the air as though cheering at a Quidditch match.

"Alright, that's it. You're all done." Harry informed her, a sense of pride in himself growing as he looked at the now unmarred skin of her face, palms and arms. Holly jumped off of the bed and hugged him around the middle tightly.

"Thank you Harry! I sit at the Slytherin table, come visit me soon okay?"

"Okay, bye!" Harry practically had to shout after her as she ran out of the hospital wing doors at top speed. Harry thought he was beginning to understand why she was considered to be so clumsy.

"Nicely done Harry; you'd make a good healer you know. Had you ever considered it before?"

"Not really. You have to get really good marks (2) to be a healer, don't you?"

"Well…not necessarily. The good marks are more important for applying for an apprenticeship in healing. They are very difficult to get because we can't just let any old person become a healer, obviously, just like you wouldn't let any old person become a surgeon in the Muggle world. So having good marks helps because, generally, when people do well in school, it shows that they are hard-workers and can pay careful attention. That is essential because if someone is unconcerned with the learning of healing they might seriously hurt a patient. There is no set time for an apprenticeship either because some people pick some things up much quicker than others."

"So there isn't an exam or something that signifies you being a proper healer at the end when you pass it?"

"No, a person becomes a fully-fledged healer when they take The Healers Oath. It is a binding magical contract with many different aspects geared towards making sure that patients get the best possible care."

"What kind of aspects does it have?"

"Well, the one you will be most familiar with is the confidentiality aspect. In your case it means that a healer cannot break healer-patient confidentiality unless it would be in your best interests to do so, and even then it is only possible to inform the guardians. The Healers Oath magically prevents confidentiality from being broken, except in such exceptional cases, by physically stopping the healer in question, I couldn't tell anyone about your family if I tried for example. Should the problem be with the guardians in the first place, however, The Oath appoints someone as The Oaths Exception, not very original I know, but it basically means that the spell detects the one person who is the most responsible for you and allows the healer to break the confidentiality in order to tell them. It is impossible as yet to break healer-patient confidentiality beyond that."

"Wait a minute…does that mean you told this Exception person about my family?" Harry gulped, trying to estimate the repercussions if she had. Poppy sighed.

"I'm sorry Harry. I know you didn't want me to tell anyone but I couldn't just stand by and watch you get abused in that awful home! I would have had you out of there in the blink of an eye if I could, it's just, he wouldn't stand for it." Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Who?" He asked, faintly.

"Professor Dumbledore."

"You mean, he knows? He knows about the Dursleys and he leaves me there to stay with them?" Harry's legs felt weak at the pure betrayal that leaked from his every pore, contaminating and tainting everything around him and forcing him to sit down on a bed before he fell down. All traces of happiness at his healing achievement were gone.

"Ohhhh, honey, I'm so sorry that he is The Oaths Exception, I really tried my hardest to get you out of there but he just wouldn't listen. He said it was imperative that you stay behind the blood wards. I know you didn't want me tell anyone, but, I just couldn't allow you stay in that place! What you must think of me, all this time you thought I knew what was happening and didn't care enough to do something about it."

Poppy referring to Harry as "Honey" was, funnily enough, the part of her speech which had impacted him most. It gave him a start and pushed him towards realising what this meant for his relationship with Poppy. He had always been happy that he knew he could trust her with even the worst of his secrets, but even he could admit that it had always been over-shadowed by the sadness that she must not care about him enough to break that trust in his own interest. He had heard many stories from his housemates of parents or friends doing something that they didn't like, but the family and friends were only doing it for their own good. Said friends had done nothing but complain of course, but he'd wished he had someone that was willing to do that for him. And now he _had_ found someone who clearly cared about him a great deal.

But he had also lost someone else who he'd _thought_ had cared about him at the same time. He was caught between two emotional extremes: love and elation, betrayal and sadness.

Harry abruptly moved from his statuesque position on the bed and wrapped his arms tightly around Poppy, feeling the tears begin to fall as he finally settled on one of the warring emotions, pushing the others to the side for later.

He finally had someone he could depend on.

Dumbledore may have turned out to be nothing more than a selfish, obsessive old man with nothing on his mind but the defeat of the dark at any cost, but that was unimportant in comparison to the bond he now felt he had with this healer, standing in front of him and hugging him back. The woman who had been nothing but kind to him, who had taken care of him, listened to his problems, comforted him when he cried, encouraged him, given him advice, and he now realised, tried to protect him.

His tears were silent as they slid down his face, a testament to his feelings over finding out that he was _truly_ cared for. Poppy rubbed his back and made comforting noises until Harry pulled back and swiped the tears away with the back of his hand.

"I always thought you just chose not to tell anyone. I…thank you. For trying to help me. No one else has ever done something like that for me before."

Poppy stroked his hair back from his face and smiled at the sincere gratitude and, dare she think it, love in his voice and expression. She simply adored this young man. She felt like she had played an important role in his life, and she was so proud of the man he was becoming. It felt like watching a son of her own blossom and grow over the years. Her smile almost slipped when the harsh memory of his cancer slammed into her with the force of a train, leaving nothing but the wreckage of her emotions. It felt amazing to know she was just as important to this young man as he was to her, after-all, she lived a rather lonely life as well with the lack of any living family, but she could think of nothing more earth-shattering, or heart-breaking or devastating than having him leave her behind, to have his presence missing forevermore.

She knew then that she could not let him leave without telling him he was loved. She could not bear the thought of him dying not knowing that he would always be in her thoughts, as if it were her own son that had died.

"Harry…what I do for you, I do out of love. Don't ever forget that, my son." The affection and love bled from her voice, and filled the air around Harry, whose face crumpled at her confession, the emotion getting the better of him.

He was her son in every way that mattered.

And nothing would ever change that.

That night, as Harry left the hospital wing to find his friends with a bag of potions in hand, Poppy locked her office door, cast silencing charms around the room, sat down in her chair, and wept.

She wept in grief, she wept in agony and she wept with anger that a life like Harry's could so easily be taken from them.

..:..:..:..:..:..

Time had given Harry a chance to completely absorb the full meaning of Poppy's revelation and he couldn't remember ever being this angry and betrayed. He tried not to show it but Ron and Hermione could tell something was up, they kept asking him probing questions along the lines of whether or not he was okay. Hermione had also taken to touching him frequently in a calming capacity, whether it was holding his hand and stroking the back with her thumb, or running her hands through his hair. Ron was the one to make sure no one did or said anything stupid and steer the conversations in safe directions. It did help him feel slightly better but Harry felt like he just couldn't get past this anger at Dumbledore and the lie he had weaved that he actually loved Harry, that he cared for him.

Ha! What a joke!

There was no way he was catering to the old mans whims anymore, not now that he knew that he had just been manipulating him all along. He wouldn't be open about it though. It would be simply idiotic to walk up to the headmaster and start ranting and raving at him about how he was left to rot in a personal Hell, not if he wanted to keep his home-life a secret.

Harry felt like he needed to let out this anger somewhere though, and soon.

Fortunately for Harry the chance came to him as he made his way back to the common room after classes as Michael Corner's voice drifted in his direction, the topic of his conversation being extremely derogatory. Judging by the glances he shot in the direction of Ginny, who was walking around the corner at the end of the corridor with her head down, it was aimed at someone he should know better than to insult. Harry felt the anger in him flare and something snapped. He stalked over to Michael and grabbed the collar of his shirt, whirling him around and causing his friends to back off in alarm at the no doubt rather homicidal expression on his face.

"I have a bone to pick with you Corner."

End Chapter

(1) If you're not really getting the explanation as to how Harry climbed up the stairs on the walls, here's a video which should give you the right idea as to what he did, except instead of just going up he went forwards too to get up the stairs:

youtube(dot)com/watch?v3TNEw1kdQ4&NR1

(I hope that actually worked :S)

(2) I think Americans are more used to the phrase "good grades" instead of "good marks", but they mean the same thing really.


	4. Perception

**Disclaimer:** See the first chapter.

**A.N.** This chapter ends in a pretty stupid place because I was getting anxious to post considering how long it's been. Sorry about that :S

Thank you all for your reviews so far! I wonder if you guys think you can manage to get me to 100 reviews before I post chapter 5? ;) I'm not going to say "You're not getting an update if you don't review me!" though, it's your choice if you want to do so or not and, well, it's not a very nice thing to do in my mind I guess lol XD It'd be nice but not necessary :)

Onwards!

**Chapter 4 – Perception**

GUYS!"

The exclamation was yelled across the general noise of the common room, causing Draco and Blaise to look up at the voices of the missing half of their group. Pansy was waving her hand frantically in an attempt to indicate that they should come with them, and judging by the hurried and excited looks on both Pansy and Millie's faces, they should hurry up about it.

Draco and Blaise climbed out of their seats and made their way out of the common room into the corridor where the girls had retreated.

"What's up?" The group began moving quickly through the school with the girls taking the lead.

"Potter's going _completely_ mental at Corner in the corridor coming off the entrance hall. Hurry up or we'll miss it!" Draco slowed down at the discovery that it was merely more Potter-watching that had got them all flustered, but quickly sped up with his friends' poking and prodding. Admittedly, it would be interesting to see Harry in a fight with someone other than himself.

It wasn't long until the Slytherin girls located the commotion, as though they had some kind of Potter-radar. Draco made this opinion known, although all he earned for his witty remark was a roll of the eyes and some blank looks. It seemed they had arrived just in time, though it was clear they had missed Potter's initial rant, as he appeared to have fallen silent.

Corner sneered in a rather pitiful way which just couldn't measure up to Draco's cool, dismissive, superior expression.

"Is that what this is about? I take it you're _another_ one of her boyfriends. Come to defend her honour?" He snorted disbelievingly, "Please, as if you'd actually do anything. This just proves my point that she's a complete slut."

Harry growled and grabbed him by his shirt, shoving him into the wall. Draco raised his eyebrows. Harry didn't normally resort to physical violence with him after-all. Instead he would be going for his wand around about now. Interesting…

"If you even _dare_ speak another insult about Ginny, or any of my other friends for that matter, I can assure you I most certainly _will_ do something about it. I promise, you self-absorbed _prick_, that I'll make sure that you regret pushing me to it more than anything else in the _world_. Do I make myself clear?" Harry's voice was hard and dangerous.

Before Corner could make a response, however, a voice spoke out from the crowd, catching their attention.

"Harry! Just leave him alone, he's not worth it." Ginny stood at the edge of the surrounding circle of people, holding her hand out towards him in an appeal to come away from the annoyance standing in front of him. She didn't want Harry getting hurt or into trouble. Harry huffed angrily but loosened his grip and backed off, taking Ginny's hand and beginning to walk away from the scene with her…

Until Corner made the mistake of trying to get the last word in.

"Told you she's a man-eater. She's even got Potter whipped, and he's practically immune to everyone else. Of course, she _would_ touch something untouchable." Corner taunted nastily, thinking his joke was funny since the friend he was speaking to gave an unsure smile.

Harry felt Ginny tense up beside him and saw her lower her head out of the corner of his eye; her hair covered her face in embarrassment and misplaced shame.

The Slytherins, meanwhile, had been rather disappointed at the anti-climactic display. That was until Harry squeezed Ginny's hand comfortingly and apologised for what he was about to do. He then turned around and strode purposefully back towards Corner, slinging his bag off of his shoulder and to the side on the floor as he went.

The Slytherins lightened up as the situation got a whole lot more interesting again, though they followed the crowd's actions of taking a step back in anticipation of the trouble Harry was obviously about to cause.

They could all see it coming, though they didn't exactly know what "it" would be. This became clear, however, when Harry did not stop or slow down as he approached Corner. Instead he raised his fist, pulled it back, and let it go with an unexpected amount of speed and strength.

The spectacular specimen of a punch landed right in the centre of Corner's face and sent him reeling. He stumbled backwards and fell on his backside as the force of impact travelled through his system.

"Ah!" he shouted, clapping a hand to his nose and screwing up his eyes in pain. The blood could easily be seen from behind his hand as it flowed and dripped freely.

There were a few seconds where everyone just watched Corner clutch at his face in so-called agony, in complete shock at Harry.

"Whoah." Breathed Blaise, glancing at Draco and trying to imagine Potter punching his best friend like that. The consequence to this line of thought was surprisingly a quiet snigger to himself, unnoticed by anyone else, as the image of Draco screeching in indignation at Potter ruining his face and putting him in such an undignified position came to him. Well, once he'd finished being a complete crybaby about the no doubt painful experience that getting punched by that powerful fist was. Ohhhh yes, Draco's feathers would be more than ruffled, he would be _furious_.

"How pathetic." Harry sighed, sounding utterly unimpressed and disappointed. He walked over to stand at the boy's side and crouched down next to him in order to speak to him, a mocking tone spread liberally over his voice.

"Aren't you at least going to defend yourself? I just punched you after-all; don't tell me all your confidence has deserted you now? Where's the hard-man gone?"

"You broke my nose!" Corner seemed to try and assess the damage as best he could without a mirror and, right enough, his nose was swelling rapidly as twin bruises seeped their way into existence to colour his eyes in black and blue.

Harry just rolled his eyes in a bored fashion and stood back up.

"What the _hell_ did you hit me for?" Corner questioned, half in anger and half disbelievingly.

"You're nothing but a bully Corner, that's why. You seem to think it's funny to bring people down but I'm telling you now, it's not. You really need to grow up, and do it fast. I simply can't _tolerate _a damn bully!" Harry ended it with a snarl.

Harry gave Corner one last disgusted look and once more made to walk off, picking up his bag again when it seemed like Corner would not be getting back up to fight him, only to be halted in the process once more by Corner's voice.

"That's not an excuse, you don't go around punching Malfoy!"

Draco perked up and listened more closely, interested at the mention of his name. Harry laughed and spun back around; unaware any of the Slytherins were even there and listening eagerly to his reasons.

"Malfoy? Malfoy is _hardly_ a bully. Do you see him walking around calling people names and spreading rumours and generally being quite thoroughly immature? No. He, at least, has a shred of decency and maturity in him, unlike you."

"Maybe, he's alright with most people but he bullies _you_." Corner claimed accusingly, now sitting up and attempting to stem the flow of blood while giving the odd pathetic whine of pain every now and then. Harry merely snorted in amusement.

"Malfoy doesn't bully me. He's not actively out to bring me down and hurt me in any way he can. That's the rather large difference between you and him."

"That's rubbish and you know it Potter! He insults your family name for heaven's sake, that's disrespecting your _dead_ parents! What other reason could he have for doing that?"

"So what?" An after-shock of surprise rippled through the crowd.

"My…relationship with Malfoy is an extremely complicated and delicate thing Corner, I wouldn't expect you to understand why we act the way we do. Not that I would tell you why things are the way they are. My reasons are private and I have no doubt that Malfoy's motivations are too." Harry flapped his hand dismissively.

"Besides, Malfoy's harmless, Corner. He may be plenty of things, but a bully isn't one of them. He annoys me like no other and he sure as hell has a talent for figuring out what buttons to push and when, but does he make me cry? No. Does he make me feel insecure about myself or the people around me? No. Do I actually _believe_ some of the crap he comes away with? No. All he does is shake things up a little, and more importantly, I can be just as spiteful back at him. Our rivalry is hardly one-sided so how can he be the bully? As for you, you're nothing but a disappointment, a bore, and, as I've already said, a bully." Harry snorted mockingly.

"Both of you may not be used to fighting muggle-style but at least he would have punched me back. Tell me Corner, how does it feel to know Malfoy has more balls than you do?" Harry raised an eyebrow in derisory question, though only Corner caught it.

"Shut up! If you don't think Malfoy's a bully then just what the hell is he, huh? Tell me that then, if you think you're so smart."

"That's hardly a challenge Corner. Malfoy is my equal. He is my opponent; my balance; my challenger; my constant even. Take your pick, they all mean the same thing for me in the end."

Corner was left with nothing to say to that as Harry and Ginny left along with Hermione and Ron, who had just arrived with worried and questioning looks in their eyes.

The Slytherins were left standing in the corridor, along with the rest of those who had watched, unsure of what to make of Potter's disclosures.

..:..:..:..:..:..

"Well…I don't know about you, but I have no clue what to make of that…does what he said about you even make sense? I mean, he _was_ speaking about _you_, right?"

Pansy questioned Draco confusedly as Millie, Blaise and Nott sat on Nott's bed doing their transfiguration homework. The group of friends was once more gathered in their usual hang out after the drama of Potter and Corner's rather one-sided fight, which also happened to be the boys' dormitory room. The rest of the Slytherins tended to just stick to the common room if they were even in the dungeons, unintentionally giving the group their privacy.

"I'm not sure. Honestly, I can't even remember what he said really. Just that it certainly wasn't the answer I was expecting when Corner started questioning him about me."

"Millie will remember, she remembers practically every word of every conversation. We can ask her to go through what he said a bit at a time and we'll look at it logically to try and figure out what he must have meant. How does that sound?" Pansy suggested.

"Yeah, sure."

"Millie, come here a sec."

Millicent looked up from her homework questions on correct wand movements and made her way over to sit beside Draco and Pansy, both of whom were on Draco's four-poster.

"What's up?"

"Go through what Potter said about Draco will you? We're trying to understand what he was waffling on about."

"Right. He said that you weren't a bully and that, while you might make him really angry, you don't actually upset him, whereas Corner does upset people. Also, he pointed out that you were both as bad as each other in terms of insulting each other and whatnot."

"Okay, it sounds like he's admitting you're actually a good guy except when you start fights with him, but then he's just as bad so it doesn't count or something. But that doesn't fit with Potter's level of maturity though. He just sees us all as evil because we're in Slytherin. I doubt he could admit that we had even a smidge of good in us. So what he really meant must have been…"

Millicent took over Pansy's train of thought as she struggled to find an answer.

"I think he was trying to save face and make Corner look bad." Draco nodded in understanding while Pansy seemed to need further explanation.

"I see what you mean. He must have been trying to imply that he couldn't care less about me or what I say to him, making him seem all tough after Corner implying he gets bullied by me, and at the same time discrediting Corner and making him look even more like the bad guy of the situation because he genuinely did upset Weasley. But in actual fact he does care about what I say to him, he just doesn't want to admit it and have people know how much of a baby he is."

"Oh, I get it!" Pansy snorted. "Arrogant git. So what about that nonsense with you being his balance and his constant and stuff instead of a bully? I'll bet he was trying to sound all deep and impressive or something. Well, I'm not buying it."

Blaise could hear his friends' conversation and couldn't help but join in. He was the main driving force behind the mission to know every single detail of gossip about Harry Potter, and he wasn't missing out on anything.

"I agree, he was probably making stuff up on the spot to confuse Corner and make himself sound smart. I mean, fair enough saying you're his opponent and his challenger and whatnot, because you are really, but balance? Exactly what are you supposed to be balancing about him anyway? How can you _balance_ a person? I don't think that even makes sense!"

"Agreed."

There was silence for a moment as everyone took a moment to mull over Potter's words and their possible meanings, which were _obviously_ different than what he actually said as far as the Slytherins were concerned. It never occurred to them that maybe everything wasn't so complicated and that Potter had simply meant what he had said.

"Do you think I bully Potter?" Draco asked his friends, feeling uncertain. He had never thought about it before but he supposed how he treated Potter technically could be considered bullying. That had never been his intention though. He would never say such things to someone he didn't think could handle it. But did that matter? Was it still bullying?

"Oh, don't think for a minute that you bully anyone. You're a good person, no matter what anyone else thinks, and Potter can't preach when he treats you just the same. It's not like you have an unfair advantage that you exploit or anything and in general there is a line you don't cross. You wouldn't kick him while he was down or anything." Pansy was quick to reassure Draco.

"I don't know. I've said some really horrible things to him in the past when he's made me _so_ angry that I'd just yell anything I could think of at him without really thinking it over. Like his dead parents, that's going really far actually, isn't it?" Draco bit his lip in guilt.

"How about this for an example then: Cedric Diggory's death. Potter was well and truly down then and it would be easy to bring Diggory up, but you never did. That was the line and you didn't cross it. And it's not like he has any really emotional connection to his parents, not like if they had died recently. Do you understand?"

"I guess…" was Draco's reluctantly accepting answer.

Nott's annoyed, nasal voice spoke out into the room in a tone of voice that made it clear he thought it beneath him to chatter away to friends about such trivial matters.

"As fascinating and entertaining as it is to hear your insightful opinions on Potter, can we please finish this homework? I'd prefer a little help here and I'm not waiting on you lot gossiping all night."

Millicent, who had her back to the boy, rolled her eyes and watched her friends try to suppress their giggles before sighing and going back to her homework, this time accompanied by the rest of her group. Pansy, however, couldn't help but whisper to Draco one last comment before she too went to dig out her schoolbooks.

"You know, Potter may be an over-rated twat, but you have to admit, that was _so_ cool, don't you think? Did you _see_ that punch?"

..:..:..:..:..:..

Harry couldn't help but scowl at the essay he had gotten back from Snape just twenty-five minutes earlier. He was sat on his stool in potions waiting for the moment when he was supposed to get up and stir his potion and he was feeling quite annoyed and stressed for a number of reasons.

Firstly, he hadn't exactly been feeling great this morning when he woke up with his head throbbing painfully in a quiet, needling kind of way. Unfortunately he was feeling no better now. He had no doubt in his mind that his headache could be a million times worse if it weren't for the potions Poppy had given him to take every morning and night, but that didn't change the fact that it was still definitely there.

Secondly, the fumes from the potions were absolutely sickening to him, and this, combined with the stifling heat from the flames under each potion, left him feeling like there was tiny man rocking an equally tiny boat rather violently in his stomach in an attempt to get him to be sick.

Lastly, on top of feeling sick, he had only just scraped a pass by the skin of his teeth on this latest potions essay, and Snape had taken the opportunity to mock him in front of the entire class for the utter nonsense he had apparently written when he handed it back.

So Harry sat there feeling hot, flushed, ill, frustrated and annoyed at, not only his lack of potions skills, but at Snape's digs at him for a complete lack of intelligence too.

Then Snape came along and stopped at Harry's cauldron.

He sneered in disgust at Harry's attempt at the Elixir of Euphoria and immediately set about letting Harry know exactly how he thought Harry had done.

"Potter, quite frankly it astounds me just how spectacularly you can screw everything potions related up. If I didn't know any better I could swear you did it in purpose. Did you even _use_ a formula to calculate how much rose water you needed or did you just guess? Don't you understand _anything_ I have tried to teach to that _simple_ mind of yours –?"

"No." Harry cut in, his arms folded and a scowl on his face. He was not in the mood to sit here quietly as Snape humiliated him. Snape blinked at Harry in shock and the rest of the class looked up from their cauldrons and notes in surprise.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Clearly I _don't_ understand anything you've taught me. I suppose it would be too much to ask of you to actually try and explain it to me in more detail, or in a different way, instead of just commenting on it and watching as I _continue_ to learn absolutely nothing from you though, wouldn't it." Harry glowered up at Snape, waiting on the man shouting at him for daring to imply he wasn't teaching him properly and yelling that it was his own fault he couldn't seem to get a good grip of potions theory.

But the tirade never came. Instead Snape considered him stoically until Harry unfolded his arms and glared half-heartedly at the wall beside him, feeling uncomfortable at the intensity of Snape's eyes boring into his.

"Stay at the end of the class Mr. Potter, and clear your things away, this potion is useless."

Snape strode to the front of the classroom to once more begin doing the rounds of the students' cauldrons, and Harry began clearing away his potions supplies, feeling confused. The rest of the people in the room would occasionally glance his way and at Snape as they continued their own potions, curious as to what exactly had just transpired to make Snape back off of Harry. Surely it couldn't be just because Harry had spoken back to him?

It wasn't long before the classroom was empty and Harry was left sitting at his desk, his head resting on his folded arms. The fumes had more or less dissipated and the fires no longer burned, allowing Harry's stomach to settle somewhat as he cooled down and breathed fresher air. This left only the lingering pain of his headache to deal with in the background as he prepared himself for whatever it was Snape might do to him.

"Mr. Potter."

Harry raised his head from his arms and looked at Snape to acknowledge the request for his attention.

"Are you free for remedial potions lessons on a Wednesday after dinner?"

Harry started at the man, trying to figure out if he was imagining things.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked you when you were free for remedial potions lessons. Do you not wish to take them?"

"No! …Actually…I'd love to take them." Snape merely blinked at Harry, so he spoke up once more.

"Well, I'd do just about anything to make potions easier at this point I guess. Honestly I think I've tried everything else, but…" Snape fought the urge to roll his eyes.

"Just say it Mr. Potter." Harry only hesitated briefly before deciding not to play dumb.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you're offering them. I expected you to be angry at me for what I said."

"I see. There is no reason I should get angry at one of my students for telling me they do not understand and they want me to help them. Perhaps you could have said it with a little more respect but I understand why you didn't and will not punish you for it. This time."

There was a moment of silence as Harry took this in.

"If you don't mind helping me then why did you never do it before?"

"How can I help someone who does not ask for it, Potter? Not once have you indicated that you had any interest whatsoever in improving your potions skills. I don't have time for people who will do nothing but waste it. If you needed help then you should have come to me and asked, you can't expect me to be a mind reader. If you want to try and improve your grade in potions and promise to take it seriously then I have no problem spending an hour a week with you going over whatever it is that you do not understand."

"Oh. While I see your point, and I _would_ like to take up remedial potions, I have to ask, how on earth could you expect me to ask you for help when all you do is constantly insult me and put me down? You _do_ realise that, that attitude to your students is hardly going to motivate them into asking you when they don't understand something, right?"

"If someone is truly determined to do well in my subject then they will ask me in spite of being intimidated. As I have already said, I have no time for people who could not care less about whether or not they understand potions. I would simply be wasting my time as anything I say would go in one ear and out the other, which means that the students who genuinely want to do well receive less of my time."

"Well how did you know that I cared that I was doing badly and wanted to try and understand? How did you know I wasn't just uninterested like before?"

"The fact that you finally said something about how I have made no effort to go out of my way to help you understand. If you didn't care whether or not I helped then you wouldn't have mentioned it as something that annoyed you. Now, that is enough interrogation I believe, I have work to do. I will make the necessary arrangements and inform you when your remedial lessons will begin. Good day."

Snape began rearranging papers on his desk until he found a pile of unmarked essays and Harry nodded and said goodbye as he left the classroom, feeling out of sorts at the realisation that Snape did actually seem to care about his students doing well on some level. He wasn't sure what he thought of him leaving the people who didn't care to their own devices, in fact, he thought that maybe Snape should at least try to motivate them and help them, but what he had said about it just being a waste of time did make sense in a way at least. If it wasn't for the fact that the man disliked Harry for something as insignificant as his parentage he might actually be an alright bloke. Maybe

..:..:..:..:..:..

Harry concentrated on staying balanced as he stood on his broom like it was a tight rope with his arms out to the sides, at an altitude way above that of the rest of the Quidditch team who were practicing at a more normal height. He had been more than eager to get to practice this week, what with various issues orbiting around his head, so that he could relax in the fresh air flowing against his skin and mull over some things.

Dumbledore, Snape and the remedial potions lessons for example. The cancer, however, did not even factor in his contemplations this time, pushed out by the food for thought he had been given over the past week or two about his perceptions of the people around him.

He had considered what to do about Dumbledore and had come to the conclusion that there was nothing he could really do at this moment in time, aside from acting like he was still ignorant and naively loyal. If he started expressing the loss of trust and loyalty to Dumbledore, what would he gain from it except possible interference and hassle in his life as Dumbledore tried to win him back and prevent him from doing anything the old man might not like? It was highly likely that he would. After-all, Harry wasn't stupid and he knew that Dumbledore would not want the public thinking he didn't have Harry's support, and he wouldn't like the idea of Harry refusing to do what he was told anymore either.

It would be easier, if it came down to it, to act against Dumbledore's wishes if the man wasn't watching him closely and he wasn't expecting it. Harry would be far more likely to get away with it. What "it" might be Harry was unsure of, but you never know what the future might bring, and Harry doubted that Dumbledore's ideas of what Harry's future would involve and his own ideas of what his future would involve were similar in any way. Especially considering the man didn't know of his cancer, and there was no way in hell that Harry was going to tell him about it either. He couldn't care less what the man's plans for him would be.

The other major reason for his reluctance to call Dumbledore on his lack of action at the knowledge of Harry's abuse was the fact that doing so would involve bringing said abuse up. As far as Harry was concerned it would be better if no one ever found out what went on at home, and the truth would have to come out if he let his disdain for the leader of the light be known. He couldn't let that happen.

Harry took a deep breath of the cool, sharp air and decided he would finish practicing his balance for a few more minutes before sitting back down on his broom to have a few more goes at catching the snitch.

In the mean time he stared up at the clouds and tried to assign each cluster a name based on its shape. The best one he could see at the moment was the unicorn-shaped cloud, however a cauldron-shaped cloud brought his mind once more back to the subject of Snape.

He had made another decision earlier to stick to his previous opinion of the man, one that he had formed in the hospital wing when he spoke to Poppy of the professor's achievement in medical potions, except it was slightly modified. Until the potions lesson resulting in the offer of remedial potions, Harry had a grudging respect for the man and his highly intelligent mind and potions talent, but otherwise disliked him for his seemingly meritless personality. His current opinion would remain more or less the same, though he would keep an open mind and look out for signs of any good qualities hiding under the man's hard exterior. He thought he has seen a hint of that in his clear dedication to the students he found worthwhile.

Harry decided that he had done enough balance practice for today. He didn't actually need it very much as he had managed to get the act of keeping his broom stable as he stood on it, without falling off, down to an art long ago. It was the only reason he was even doing something so dangerous so high up in fact, but he liked to make sure he was keeping on top of things and he loved to be up in the air like this.

Harry looked back down at his broom, ignoring the tiny people on the pitch below him as the Gryffindor team practiced, and went to bend down to once more straddle his broom.

However, as he made this slightly forward and down movement, something in his perception went funny. It was like everything tilted or shifted and his hands, stretched out to grab his broom, missed their target as a result. Harry felt his stomach lurch as he fell forward, his legs leaving his broom behind as they inevitably followed the rest of his body. He then felt the horrible swooping sensation in his stomach that accompanied his free fell from the spectacular height he had been hovering at, panicking as he went down and yelling out in alarm.

Meanwhile on the ground, the rest of the Quidditch team—plus some other Gryffindors messing about on their brooms—glanced up and felt their hearts jump into their throats and the blood drain from their faces. The cause of their reaction was, of course, the sight of Harry Potter making quick progress through unimpeding air towards the unforgiving grassy floor of the Quidditch pitch.

Dean Thomas was the first to react, with Ron following close second, leaving the others to stay put, knowing that any more than two people trying to help would only mean they would get in the way instead of actually managing to save Harry. Hermione, who had been chatting to Lavender and Parvati, sprung from her seat at the bottom row of the Quidditch stands and hung over the railing, feeling a surge of adrenaline dash through her system in sheer terror.

Both Dean and Ron flew up to towards Harry, and then followed him down when they reached him by keeping their brooms at the speed Harry fell. Dean grabbed Harry's forearms, Ron grabbed his ankles, and as one the pair of boys reversed their broom direction and flew up with everything they had in an effort to counteract the momentum Harry had accumulated as he fell.

They were slowing down but they were still heading towards the land at a worrying rate, and then there was a loud pop as one of Harry's shoulders dislocated at the strain and pressure on his body, causing him to scream out loudly in pain. Dean almost dropped Harry's arms in shock, fright and guilt that he had hurt Harry, but Ron shouted at him not to let go and Dean's grip tightened around Harry's wrists once more, where his hands had slipped to in the brief moment he had lost it. He knew it would be extremely painful for Harry but it was the lesser of two evils.

"Hermione!" Ron yelled at the realisation that they weren't going to slow down enough in time. Hermione whipped out her wand in the blink of an eye and positively flung her arm out in the direction of the ground underneath the trio of falling flyers.

"_PENICULUS_!" She screamed desperately.

The ground seemed to warp slightly for a second before once more looking completely normal, however it became clear that this was not the case when Harry, Dean and Ron barrelled into it at a damaging speed, only to disappear into the ground in a hollow. It had appeared by the compression of the ground on impact in a manner similar to a sponge, and halted their fall without the damage of hitting a hard surface.

When it seemed like the boys were safe from further damage Hermione raced her way down the stairs of the Quidditch stands and ran over, her heart hammering away in her chest and her breathing rate much quicker than normal in her panic.

All three boys lay panting at the severe scare but were quickly moving once more.

"Harry! Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere else? C'mon mate, speak to me here." Ron questioned frantically, his hand swiping Harry's hair out of his face so he could get a good look at him.

"Shoulder." Harry managed to grind out from behind gritted teeth as his shoulder overwhelmed his brain with millions of messages screaming "PAIN!".

"What's wrong with it?" Hermione's breathless question came as she reached them.

"I think I dislocated it or something!" Dean told her in a slightly hysterical state from the combination of shock, fear, adrenaline, worry and guilt.

"Right. Okay. Right." Hermione dithered for a few seconds before she managed to pull herself together enough to take action. Dean and Ron disentangled themselves from their brooms as Harry lay on the ground, pale and shocked looking, so that they could help.

Hermione stepped forward and knelt down next to Harry. She then took off her cloak and laid it flat on the ground beside her so that she could cut a large triangle out of the fabric by tracing the tip of her wand over an imaginary outline of the shape.

"Harry, I need you to sit up. Guys, help him please, and be careful with him. Can someone go inform Madame Pomfrey too?" Hermione had calmed down enough to think clearly and had immediately set about making a sling for Harry's arm and thinking about getting him to Madame Pomfrey.

"Parvati's already gone to tell her."

"Thanks Lavender."

"Ah!" Harry yelled out as his shoulder was jostled in the process of sitting him up.

"Oops, sorry Harry!"

"S'fine Ron."

Hermione finished cutting out her makeshift sling and made a start to getting Harry's arm into it, predicting correctly that Harry would strongly protest to the movement of his arm.

"I know it hurts but it's just so we can get it in a sling Harry, then we can get up to the hospital wing." She coaxed until Harry finally let her move his arm into her sling, though she felt guilty when she could see the pain he was in at having to do so. In all honesty she hadn't actually expected that he would let anyone move his arm until Poppy Pomfrey intervened.

"Okay, is everyone definitely okay?" she checked once more as both she and Harry stood up in order to walk to the infirmary.

"We're fine 'Mione. What the hell happened up there anyway Harry? Did someone shoot a spell at you? Were you trying out a new move or something?" Ron both assured Hermione that there were no further injuries and immediately set about finding out just how exactly their current situation had come about while the group of friends made their way into the castle. Over-all, everyone's reactions and been fairly swift and the time taken to sort everything out and have Harry on his way to the infirmary was minimal.

"I don't really know what happened, my eyes just went sort of funny." Harry told Ron confusedly, using his good arm to cradle his bad one. Hermione frowned with a mixture of puzzlement and concern.

"What do you mean? Did you black out?"

"No, it was more like double vision or dizziness. Like, I looked at my broom handle to grab hold of it but when I reached out it turned out that the handle was further left than I thought I'd seen and I actually ended up grabbing at thin air. I couldn't fix my mistake in time to avoid falling." Ron and Hermione exchanged worried looks, though neither could give an immediate answer to what it could be that went wrong.

When the group got into the school only Ron, Hermione and Harry continued on to see Pomfrey while everyone else said they hoped that Harry's shoulder was fixed up easily and that they'd see him soon. This left Hermione able to voice her thoughts to Ron, who was still confusedly trying to figure out what could have gone wrong with Harry, and Harry, who was rather unconcerned with the issue considering his priority right now was getting his shoulder healed. He couldn't really notice much else with the way the pain demanded his attention.

"Have you been eating properly Harry? And sleeping? Maybe you were dehydrated or exhausted and almost fainted as a result?"

"I don't think so, I felt fine beforehand. And besides, it's not like I faint all the time or something."

"You promise that you've definitely been taking care of yourself Harry? Because I'll know if you're lying, make no mistake." Hermione threatened earnestly.

"'Mione! Honestly, I was fine! I promise!"

"Good…then, you don't think…?" Hermione trailed off in slight doubt at her idea.

"Think what?" Ron prompted at her apparent reluctance to continue her sentence.

"Do you think it could have been Voldemort again? Maybe he could tell you were practicing Quidditch and deliberately tampered with your perception in the hopes you would fall off your broom?" Hermione asked Harry gravely.

"Voldemort? I hadn't thought of that. You think he could?" Harry seemed mildly surprised at Hermione's theory.

"I don't know but…well, we know he likes to mess with your head Harry, so why not mess with the messages going from your eyes to your brain on what you're seeing? Surely it's not that big a leap from what he already does?" There was silence as Ron and Hermione considered this and worried about just how much Voldemort seemed to be able to affect their friend. At this rate Harry would never have a moment's peace, from the torment or the danger. They would just have to hope that they were wrong and that Voldemort's influence didn't escalate any more, though right now it was the only explanation they could think of for what Harry had described if he was telling the truth.

As the trio finally made it to the infirmary and a concernedly waiting Madame Pomfrey, Hermione shoved her thoughts out of her head for the present moment. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about such things, but if they got worse she would have to do something. Maybe Dumbledore would know what was going on, and if he did he might also have a way of solving this problem.

"Thank you for bringing him here, I can take over for now if the two of you would like to wait for him." Poppy immediately took charge upon Harry's arrival and sat him down on a bed half way down the wing, closest to the potions cabinet, while Ron and Hermione sat down in the waiting area next to the entrance. It was less an "area" and more like a small gathering of chairs for the purpose of providing people with somewhere to sit out of the way of the healing process.

"What happened then Harry?"

"My eyesight went funny when I was trying to sit back down on my broom and I fell off. Ron and Dean caught me but I dislocated my shoulder from Dean pulling on my arm." Poppy's gaze became sharp instantly.

"Your eyesight? You're sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"You don't think it could have been exhaustion, heat or lack of energy from food?"

"I'm positive! Honestly, with the way you and Hermione question me you'd think I was an anorexic insomniac or something!"

Poppy simply quirked one edge of her mouth upwards in amusement.

"Right, well let's see to this shoulder then."

Poppy carefully took Harry's arm out of the sling, briefly expressing her approval of whoever had put their knowledge of basic muggle first aid to use. Apparently most magical folk, including highly respected healers and healing researchers, didn't have this knowledge themselves. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knew what the recovery position _was_, let alone when, how or why to use it on someone because they didn't believe it was necessary knowledge when they had magic.

The healing of Harry's shoulder took an interesting combination of spell and potion. The first thing Poppy did was use a spell which caused an effect similar to what you would see if someone had just switched on a lamp inside a thin tent while you were standing on the outside, watching the shadow of the person moving inside against the lit walls of the tent. Harry's shoulder also seemed to light up from inside, and the shadows of the separated joint could be seen against the illuminated skin.

Once Poppy could clearly make out the position of each part of the relevant bones she would be working with she fetched two thick potions that had been poured into small tubs to harden into two differently coloured creams. One was pure black, the other pure white, but both had what looked like tiny streams of blue magic or electricity no wider than a strand of hair striking it's way throughout regularly.

Poppy applied one cream to the edge of Harry's misshapen shoulder over the shadow created by the end of the arm bone, which was currently separated from the rest of his skeleton. The other cream was applied to the corresponding half of the damaged joint, leaving a space between each of the coloured creams where the gap was from the dislocation.

Once the creams had been absorbed by Harry's skin all it took from Poppy was some guidance by her gentle hands as the two parts of Harry's shoulder joint seemed to attract back together. It was as though they had been magnetised.

"All right Harry, try some of the movements I'm making with my arm for me, it might twinge a little, which is okay, but there should be no particularly pressing pain as there was an added pain-relief component in those creams. If anything doesn't feel right in any way I need you to tell me. Okay?"

After a nod from Harry and some rather ridiculous arm-waving, Harry's shoulder was proclaimed healed.

"Alright Harry, stay there for a second while I tell your friends they'll need to go back to their common rooms now."

"Can't I leave with them? My shoulder feels fine now; I thought you said it was alright?"

"Your shoulder is better now but once the pain-killer wears off it'll start to hurt more. Besides, I need to do some more tests I think. I'll be back in just a second." Poppy bustled over to Ron and Hermione and after a short conversation Harry's friends left looking relieved if not slightly disappointed that they had to leave Harry behind.

"I take it I'm staying here tonight then?" Harry asked as his eyes followed his healer's progress back to his bedside, though it sounded less like a question and more like a statement.

"I'm afraid so Harry." Poppy sounded apologetic but Harry just smiled when he heard the sympathetic tone to her voice.

"It's fine, I don't really mind. I kind of like it here anyway I suppose. It's more peaceful than the dorm that's for sure, and I can take as long as I want in the shower in the morning since there's no one else waiting to get in before breakfast starts."

"Glad to hear it." Poppy smiled back, pleased to know Harry didn't hate staying in the hospital wing with her. Most of the students couldn't stand it and so were constantly trying to escape before they were fully healed as a result.

"So, what kind of tests are you talking about?"

"Well, I have a fair idea of what happened to your eyes but I want to make absolutely sure that it's a possibility I should consider. "

"What do you think happened?" Harry's head tilted very slightly to the side, as it often did when he was thinking about something he was rather curious about.

"Let's not get into that just now, it might not even be true. We'll just see what these tests show first and then we can go from there." Harry sighed in a way that spoke of long suffering.

"Fine, but I'm telling you, I'm perfectly, totally, completely, well-and-truly fine. Seriously"

The healer did not answer Harry but instead pulled out her wand and tapped Harry lightly on the head with it, incanting "_Impleomador_". She then slashed it through the air from right to left unexpectedly, causing Harry to jump a little in surprise. This alarm was quickly forgotten however when the tip of Poppy's wand left a trail of tiny, floating sparks in it's wake. The majority of the sparks were blue but there were other, less common colours amongst them, sparkling away like pieces of glitter. When Poppy seemed happy enough with her examination she lowered her wand and the beautiful magic faded.

"Wow. What does that do?"

"It's a way of finding out how hydrated you are, or dehydrated as the case may be." Poppy was pulling out a tiny bottle containing no more than a mouthful of potion from the potions cabinet as she spoke.

"This is a measure of fatigue levels. I'm going to get you to take it in a moment and depending on how well rested you are it will take you between 1 and 10 seconds for you to fall asleep. You will only sleep for roughly 3 seconds but I can get an exhaustion level for you on a scale of 1 to 10. It takes less time for the potion to take effect the more tired you are so 1 second would mean you are completely exhausted, 10 would mean you are 100 fully rested. Do you understand?"

At Harry's nod of confirmation Poppy handed over the potion and motioned for Harry to lie down on the bed.

"How do people come up with this stuff? Honestly, I can't understand anything in potions. I think it'd be a pretty cool career though, making up lots of weird and wonderful things. Interesting anyway, or, at least I assume it would be if I could understand it. It must be if they come up with stuff like this." Harry commented, eyeing the potion through the glass bottle as though if he stared long enough it would do something interesting. He pulled the cork out of the top of the bottle finally and tipped it into his mouth. He shuddered at the raw-egg texture dripping like gloop or slime down his throat and waited to fall asleep.

When Harry woke up 11 seconds later Poppy sighed sadly and sat on the bed next to Harry. She had hoped she was wrong but it would seem she was destined to be disappointed and, for once, thoroughly disheartened by her accuracy. Without beating around the bush Poppy immediately begun explaining to Harry what she believed had caused the alteration in his perception and resulting fall from his broom.

"Harry, I'm afraid I think it's highly probable that your brain tumour was what was affecting your vision. I know it sounds bad but I had hoped on some level that you had simply fainted through a combination of lack of sleep and lack of nutrients from food but the tests showed that you're fairly well rested and generally healthy.

"I hadn't expected more symptoms other than your headaches just yet, not with the potions you've been taking anyway. So I'm worried about whether or not the time-scale I estimated for you was correct or not.

"Either way, it was about time I spoke to you more seriously about the symptoms you are likely to experience, especially considering some are apparently already showing up. Speaking of which…I'm really sorry but…I think it's best you quit your flying, for Quidditch or for any other reason. There's just no way we can guarantee you would be safe if something similar to what happened today were to happen again. Do you understand?"

**To be continued…**


	5. Victim, or Victor?

**Disclaimer: **Please see chapter one :)

**Big thank you: **to my beta lunaparvulus for beta-ing all chapters bar the first so far

**Victim, Or Victor?**

Harry took a few seconds to take in Poppy's words. The issue of how much time he had left and the issue of a complete flying ban were in combat for his initial attention but in the end it was his life that won the battle, as it should have.

"Right…what do you mean by timescale? Are you saying I don't even have two years left now?"

"Well, I'm not going to give you any definite answers because there's always the possibility that I'm wrong. I think that the best course of action is to keep you on your potions for now and see if any more symptoms, other than sore heads, appear a second time. If anything does I'll re-do all of the tests we did in the beginning to get an idea of how far advanced your cancer truly is and see what we come up with."

Harry just nodded half-heartedly, his eyes unfocused as he tried to make sense of these most recent developments.

"Okay, so…what kind of stuff should I look out for?"

"There are many possible symptoms depending on where exactly in the brain a tumour is. I have an information leaflet that lists them for you."

Poppy climbed out of her seat and walked across to the small desk she had where she pulled a folded piece of paper from the top drawer. She closed the drawer and walked back over to her seat, holding out the piece of paper for Harry to take once she was within reach.

Harry unfolded the plain leaflet with trepidation. Just what was going to happen to him? He had avoided the subject until now but there was no denying the bubble of nerves in his stomach at the thought of all of the weird and wonderful things he might end up going through. Finally the paper was pulled flat and all of the terrifying words were exposed. Harry's eyes skimmed over what he considered irrelevant and focused entirely on the many, long lists of symptoms…

_- Behavioural, mental and emotional changes (e.g. disinhibition)_

_- Impaired sense of smell_

_- Memory loss_

_- Paralysis on one side of the body _

_- Vision loss and inflammation of the optic nerve_

_- Impaired speech_

_- Seizures_

_- Drowsiness_

_- Headaches, especially in the morning_

_- Hearing loss_

_- Muscle weakness on one side of the face (e.g. head tilt, crooked smile)_

_- Muscle weakness on one side of the body_

_- Vomiting_

_- Nausea_

_- Lack of recognition_

_- Difficulty speaking and swallowing_

_- Inability to write_

_- Incontinence…_

The list went on but Harry didn't think he wanted to read anymore just now, not in front of Poppy. Maybe when he got back to the dorm room and had some privacy to fully register the realisation that, as far as he could see, according to this list, he would more or less be incapable of doing _anything _eventually. His breath escaped him in one long, depressed and slightly surprised sigh.

"Wow…that's a lot of stuff. What's incontinence?"

"It's more or less the loss of control over when and where you go to the toilet."

"Oh. Ew. I hope that doesn't happen to me…what's going to happen if the more obvious stuff happens though? Like not being able to write, I can't really keep going to classes if I can't write. Is there a way of hiding stuff like that?"

"Not really, no. If it's going to happen then it will. The question is just when. I understand you want to keep everything a secret, Harry, but as you're no doubt realising, that won't be possible, not for very long anyway. Don't you think it would be more sensible to tell everyone yourself instead of having them figure it out when they witness the symptoms on that list?"

"… No?"

Poppy just raised her eyebrows at him in response, causing Harry to sigh again, this time in resignation.

"I know, I know. I'm just…I still don't think I'm ready to tell anyone yet. I don't feel like I have a good enough grip on it yet. I know it's there but it's not like it's really obvious. I don't _feel _like I have cancer…this isn't making much sense is it? Urgh. I just need more time. I will tell them, I just don't want to have to deal with it yet is all.

"I understand Harry. I'll be there for you when you feel like you're ready to let people know. Try not to worry too much if and when any of these symptoms show up in the meantime. I have something for you that will work as a form of communication when you're in need of me but I won't give it to you just now; I need to discuss it with you in more depth before we decide whether or not to use it. I think I'll just leave that for tomorrow."

"Right, thanks Poppy." Harry leaned over and gave the woman a brief hug to show his gratitude but didn't ask about this mysterious form of communication. He didn't think he could take anything else in right now. In fact, he was feeling practically exhausted all of a sudden; Harry wanted nothing more than to just climb under the covers and get some serious resting done.

"Do you mind if I just go to sleep? I guess the fall took a lot out of me."

Harry flashed a wan smile but both healer and patient knew that Harry's sudden need to sleep had nothing to do with the fall and more to do with Poppy's warnings about his life's timescale and the danger of continuing to fly. Poppy knew Harry would find it difficult to accept everything she had told him. Some time alone to think it all over was what he wanted, and time alone was what he would get.

"Alright Harry. Don't forget to brush your teeth and clean up before you go to sleep though."

Poppy stood up and smoothed the mess of hair on the back of Harry's head down in a gesture of affection before returning to her office. Harry, meanwhile, let a small smile ghost over his lips at the mothering aura Poppy had embodied as she left, though it vanished fairly quickly. Finally alone to think he burrowed under the covers and snuggled up comfortably in the soft quilts and sheets, and plump pillows that his head sank into satisfyingly.

How was he supposed to get by without flying? There was the obvious problem with boredom now that he was permanently grounded; he had a lot of time he normally spent on a broom to fill in now. He would have to quit the Quidditch team too, and the thought of the angry and disappointed expressions of his team-mates, especially Ron's, made him dread having to face them in the future about it.

Unfortunately he would have dealt with that kind of upset by going for a whirl on his broom ordinarily. It was like everything became simplified the second he broke away from the restraints of gravity. His head became as clear as the air that encompassed him, allowing him to look at a problem in a much more relaxed and calm way. This generally produced far better results than when he was on land and in direct contact with the world that had upset him in the first place. Sometimes it was nice to break away from it all and float on air, detached from everything not just physically but mentally as well.

This particular perk to flying had been learned over time but there was a deeper, more fundamental connection to flying that had been born the very first time he flew. Before then Harry had felt _more_ than a little out of place in the vibrant, yet intimidatingly complicated, culture of the wizarding world. He couldn't help but feel utterly ignorant and useless to a society that, at the time, seemed like something only found in the dreams and fairytales of little children.

But then came his undeniable success at flying (and later Quidditch) and he finally knew that this was his home. He belonged in the wizarding world. He was wanted and needed here, whether it was just for his skill on a broom (which in his mind proved he was worthy of being counted a wizard) or for more than that. Harry practically equated his connection to flight with his connection to the wizarding world. What use was he if he couldn't fly?

Harry frowned at his own last thought and stomped on his 11-year-old-self logic. He knew better than that now. He may no longer be able to bring Gryffindor to Quidditch success but that didn't change the fact that he belonged in this world of magic and was more than needed. Possibly more than anyone else…

Before Harry's thoughts could descend any further into the subject of Voldemort and the prophecy his mind finally quieted down for the night and he slept.

* * *

Harry woke up at seven thirty the next morning thanks to a well-trained body clock. After spending years getting up early to get on with the housework at the Dursleys' Harry now found that he just couldn't sleep right on through until late morning (or early afternoon even) like his dorm mates did at every opportunity they got.

His attention wandered slightly in the moment between dreams and reality until it found a subject to focus on in the form of Poppy, who was obviously also just up as she was half way through her morning routine and still dressed in her night clothes.

"Is that you awake now Harry? Your friends will be here for you soon, you'd best get up and ready or you'll miss breakfast. Goodness knows you've missed enough meals as it is."

Harry groaned and rolled over, pulling the quilts up to tuck tightly under his chin. He really couldn't be bothered with anything right now, and the last thing he felt like doing was getting up and attempting to go about his life like everything was normal when clearly it wasn't.

He had freaking _cancer_ for Pete's sake! He'd only barely found out and already it was putting in an appearance and ruining his life, as if to say 'Don't think you can forget about me, your life is _mine_ now!'

So what was the point in getting up? He would much rather just sleep thank you very much. He would probably be equally as effective lying there as he would have been getting up and going about his life anyway. You know, in the way that didn't count as living, just existing. That was what he normally did.

That was all he had done with his entire life really. Sure he had defeated a dark lord and killed a basilisk and all of those other things that most people would exclaim over, but all of that had just _happened_ to him, none of it was in his _control_, and that was what Harry wanted more than anything else now.

He wanted to have the final say in his life. He wanted to have decided exactly what he felt like doing with it, and then have gone ahead and done precisely what he had said he would. _Then_ he would have lived his life the way _he_ chose to, the way he _wanted_ to, rather than merely existing the way things were according to other people and events.

Wouldn't it be better to live by his own choice of path rather than the way the flow of life dictated he went? Maybe most people would kill to live their lives the way he did before they died, but they at least would have a choice in that case. Harry, however, had never had a choice in pretty much any aspect of his life, and now that it was coming to a close he felt like he had wasted it by allowing himself to float in whatever direction the current took him. Instead he should have been assertive enough to plant his feet firmly in place to decide if he wanted to continue, or if he wanted to go against the flow, against the current that tugged at him.

But he hadn't done that, and now he had to live the last year or two of his life knowing he had wasted it. So what was the point of bothering to get up now, it was too late to do anything anyway. It was too late to struggle against the flow that had led him to where he was in life, so he might as well just lie here and wait for the last little drop of his life to eventually evaporate.

"Come on Harry, up!" Poppy bustled over to his bed in the same way she seemed to bustle everywhere while Harry opened one eye and blinked at her blearily.

"Can't I just stay in here today please?" He mumbled. Poppy frowned slightly.

"Is your shoulder hurting badly?" she asked, thinking there must still be something wrong with it.

"No. It's just a little sore when I move it or bump it, but it's fine overall. I just don't really feel up to school and everything else today is all." was Harry's understated reply, his eyes resting on the bedclothes as Poppy bit her lip in uncertainty.

From Harry's explanation and body language she could tell he just wanted to hide away and that he was feeling depressed after last night's talk, she just didn't know what to do about it. Should she let him stay, and therefore be letting him wallow in despair and hopelessness over his situation? Or make him go to classes and try to avoid giving him the chance to do so?

But if she did that there was no guarantee that he wouldn't feel that way anyway, and so it would be like she was just ignoring his feelings and his need for some time to get used to the way the rest of his life would be from now on.

Finally she decided she would let him have today off only, after that she expected him back into the swing of things around Hogwarts, hopefully feeling a little better about everything.

"Just for today, I guess you can stay off."

"Thanks, Poppy. Really. Do you mind telling Ron and Hermione when they come that I'm staying off for today?"

"Sure. Go back to sleep if you want, I'll wake you up later for something to eat."

* * *

Lunchtime that day found Harry waking up once more to find Hermione sitting on the bed next to him, giggling conspiringly as she tickled his nose lightly with the tip of her quill.

She cooed; "Wakey wakey, sunshine! We brought you a tuna salad sandwich!"

"Is there mayo on it?" Harry questioned, his voice slightly hoarse with lingering sleepiness as he rubbed his nose and pushed himself up to sit against the headboard slowly.

"Yep. Honestly Harry, after the way you complained last time about how you _hated_ dry food there's no way I'm ever giving you anything to eat again unless it has some form of sauce or gravy on it." Hermione toed off her plain, black flat-shoes and climbed fully onto the bed next to Harry. Once she was settled with her back to the headboard alongside Harry and with her legs straight out in front of her, crossed at the ankles, she handed him his sandwich.

"Thanks."

"So, how's your shoulder?"

"Much better. You know how Poppy is, she could heal practically anything in three seconds flat."

Ron snorted and sat down on a chair placed next to the bed.

"Yeah, unless you're Draco Malfoy. Then it takes months of painful spells and potions before you're better, even if it's just a scratch!"

Harry snickered in agreement and nibbled his sandwich unenthusiastically.

"Seriously though mate, I'm glad you're alright. The team had a bit of a panic last night about you maybe not being able to compete for the cup if you'd hurt yourself too badly, especially since we don't really have a reserve seeker to stand in for you. We'd have to pull Ginny out of her position as chaser and get her to do it, since she's the only one who's even slightly close to having any talent at the position. Then we'd need someone else to play chaser instead of her, but then we'd technically have two weaker players on the pitch…but everything's fine, thanks to Pomfrey there's no worries now! The team will be happy to hear it."

Ron grinned happily and clapped Harry's nearest shoulder twice, which was thankfully the uninjured one.

"Em…about that Ron…" Ron's face immediately fell.

"Aw, no! You've got to be joking me! I thought you said everything was fine?!"

"Everything _is_ fine, but Poppy has banned me from flying altogether now. She says it's too dangerous to risk the same thing happening again, especially since I can't expect you guys to rescue me all the time. I'm really sorry mate, honestly I am. If I could be out there flying with you, you know I'd be there in a second. I just can't afford to anymore is all…"

Ron's horror seemed to settle down slightly at Harry's explanation in order to make way for a grudgingly understanding acceptance, though he still sighed in resignation and slight annoyance.

"Nah, it's cool Harry. She's right after all. Better to lose a Quidditch game than have you smash your head in when you start seeing double, or whatever it was that happened to you. I guess we'll just have to make Ginny our seeker."

There was a short, disappointed silence, which Ron broke. He was already thinking about how best to manage this blow to his Quidditch team.

"Actually, do you think that it would be better to find someone else to play seeker, who is probably not very good at all, and only have one really weak member of the team? That way, if we train hard enough, I think we could manage to score enough points that a crap seeker won't matter, and we could win despite the other team's seeker catching the snitch."

"It depends how safe you want to play it, I guess. It would be a safer bet just to have Ginny as seeker and use a reserve chaser because then we know that, while they are the weaker players on the team in those positions, they at least have _some_ skill. Definitely enough to get by, maybe enough to win. But if you go for a new seeker and keep Ginny as chaser it's more of an all or nothing kind of deal. Either you tear the other team to shreds or you crash and burn, badly."

"I suppose, I'll talk it over with the rest of the team and see what they think. I'm leaning more towards using Ginny as seeker though. It's just, I hate the thought of Malfoy's face if he catches the snitch in our game, and if we use Ginny, and she manages to catch the snitch, we won't have to put up with his pointy face lording it over us like he'd beaten Viktor Krum or something." Ron's nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought of Malfoy boasting about how he finally managed to catch the snitch against Gryffindor. They'd never hear the end of it.

"Speaking of Malfoy, Ginny told us what you were saying about him that time you punched Corner. Did you really mean all of that?" Hermione cut in quickly when she saw the perfect opening to steer the boys away from anymore Quidditch talk.

"Of course I did, I wouldn't have said it if I didn't. Why?"

"Well…you have to admit Harry, it's kind of strange that you said you don't hate him or think he's a bully considering how he treats us. I mean, you say you don't mind him but you _always_ get into fights with him."

"I know, but…our rivalry isn't serious, is it? I mean…I've met people like Wormtail and Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, who have all done horrible things in their lifetime. They've killed who knows how many people, Bella has tortured people until they don't even recognise their own kids, and Wormtail betrayed extremely close friends, just because he didn't have enough balls to stand up to anyone that so much as looked at him the wrong way. To make things _worse_ they plan on killing even MORE people, ruining more lives, and spreading more hate and prejudice…and they _all_ want me dead, preferably in the most painful way possible. So, I deal with people like that, and then I come back here and find the worst person I could run into, apart from Snape maybe, is Malfoy. It just puts things into perspective a little.

"I mean, think about it, what's Malfoy ever actually done? Has he killed someone? Betrayed someone? Tortured someone? No. He doesn't deserve my _hatred_. No more than I deserve his anyway, because, let's face it, if your reason for hating him is because you think he's an asshole in general, based on how he treats us, then you should hate me too, since I'm just as much a dick to him as he is to me. We're no different. If you look at it from his and his friends' point of view, _we're_ the bad guys who treat _them_ like crap and so they hate _us_ back."

Ron just looked at Harry as though waiting for him to add a 'But…!" to his explanation which would more or less take back what he had already said. Hermione, meanwhile, wore the same expression she wore in classes, the one that meant she was giving the subject her full attention and concentration to consider what was being said.

"Look, what I'm trying to say is that I don't argue with Malfoy because I hate him or anything, because I really don't. I argue with him because sometimes he pisses me off and he pushes all the wrong buttons with me whenever he sees me. I argue with him because I don't like sitting by and not saying anything while he walks off and thinks he's got one over on me just because he took the piss and I didn't say anything back. Sometimes I even argue with him just because I'm really angry and stressed out, it's a great stress reliever to let it all go by just going mental and shouting at him like we sometimes end up doing. It's kind of fun, really. A bit like a sport. Or a personal challenge. It keeps me on my toes. You know? He keeps things interesting if it ever gets a bit boring around here.

"Although, to be honest, by now I think it's more habit than anything else. I don't even think about it anymore. He says something to me, I say something back and it goes from there. It's like Hogwarts wouldn't be complete without an argument or fight of some kind with Malfoy thrown in there too. That's all it is to me, it's like a normal, every-day experience that I'm used to but I don't really feel bothered about. I don't walk around thinking about how much I hate him or something. I _think_ it's the same for him as well."

"…Sometimes…I know it sounds pathetic but…with so much going on in my life I like being able to fall back on Malfoy. I mean, my fights with him. It's just so _predictable_; he's like the one thing that never seems to change around here. Sometimes I need to have something to hold on to, you know. Have you heard the saying 'It's better the devil you know'? I suppose it's kind of like that idea. By the way, if you ever tell anyone that, I might just have to kill you. Can't have Malfoy thinking I actually like him or something, heaven forbid."

Harry's friends took a moment longer to fully digest Harry's words, producing a rather substantial silence which was finally broken by Hermione.

"Oh. Well, first of all, Harry, just remember that if you need someone to ground you Ron and I will do anything we can do to help, okay? As for Malfoy…I suppose that's kind of true really. I mean the bit you said about it being put into perspective when you compare Malfoy to Wormtail or someone else like him. It's quite an interesting thought actually; I'd never considered it like that before. He really is just simply a teenager, acting up in school, and really, that's not evil is it? It's not important with people like the Death Eaters out there. He might even grow out of it… Possibly…"

Hermione had taken Harry's reasoning and utterly run with it, getting rather enthusiastic as her brain went about figuring everything out and coming to it's conclusions.

"When did you come to start thinking like that though? No offence Harry, but I didn't exactly have you pinned as someone who thought very deeply about stuff like that."

"I can't remember exactly when I started thinking like that, but you're right, that wasn't always my opinion.

"It was during one summer, that I know for sure, because I remember that what started me off thinking about it was being around some of the people from my old school. They reminded me of how much I hate prejudice and judgement more than anything else. It does horrible things to people.

"Out of that thought I eventually came to realise that people judged Slytherin all the time, including myself. Apart from Malfoy, can you think of anyone in Slytherin you don't like for a valid reason that you can actually pinpoint and explain? I felt like the biggest asshole in the world then, and I promised to myself that I would never let myself be taken in by stereotypes and illogical, unfair judgements again. Although, by then it was a bit late to try and show Malfoy that I didn't care what everyone else thought, we were already established as rivals. But I stopped hating Malfoy. I kind of felt sorry for him really."

"…Right…I still think Malfoy's a bit of a prick though. I can't believe you actually feel sorry for him Harry. I don't care how hated the 'poor things' are, I still can't believe they're nice, not until I see it for myself. They _ask_ to be hated with the way they treat people" Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Ron, you can be so childish sometimes! Honestly, I think it's a good thing that Harry actually thought about how they must feel sometimes, it shows maturity and empathy."

"What? How is that fair?! Just because I don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt doesn't mean I'm immature! Did it occur to you that maybe Harry is just being naïve? I'm not saying I'll hate all Slytherins forever you know, just that I don't like the ones I know and I'll believe they're nice only if I get proof. That's perfectly reasonable! Besides, I think we're over-looking the biggest problem with them all; is everyone forgetting that they're on _Voldemort's_ side?" Harry groaned, almost embarrassed at Ron's argument for hating Slytherins, and it appeared that Hermione felt the same way as him when she asked him incredulously,

"Ron, you didn't seriously just say that, did you?"

Harry also chipped in, his voice tuned to disbelief, "Ron, have you seen with your own eyes a dark mark on any of them? You can't just go around accusing people like that! That's a serious thing to say about someone these days, you can't just go throwing it around like that! Just because they have dark backgrounds doesn't mean they're dark themselves, look at Sirius! He _hated_ his family and wanted nothing to do with the dark side, but his family was among those with the worst reputation, and I know for a fact he went around school doing much worse things to people than any of our Slytherins do. Plus, half of Slytherin don't even _belong_ to dark families!"

Ron blushed as Harry shot his argument to pieces with actual examples of how he was wrong.

"Okay, I get it, no need to explode! I forgot about Sirius I guess."

Before the friends could talk any further about the Slytherins or the possibility that they were just as normal and capable of being good people, as well as mean, as they were, the bell to signal five minutes till 5th period rang.

Ron left feeling confused and stupid since he hadn't been able to look at the bigger picture of the Slytherins without his friends having to point it all out to him. He promised himself he would think about it all in much more depth and at least try to see where everyone else was coming from. He wanted to think it all over and come to his own conclusions about whether or not what Harry and Hermione were saying was true after honestly considering everything. If he was proven wrong then he would just have to accept it. That was always the hardest part about trying not to go back to the old, self-absorbed Ron…admitting when he was wrong.

Hermione, meanwhile, left feeling a new resolve that she would be much more tolerant to any Slytherins that bothered her, and more accepting and friendly to all other Slytherins. Harry was right after all, no one ever thought twice about how the Slytherins were actually the ones who got the hardest time around here. It was about time someone put a stop to it. She wasn't stupid enough to think that things would instantly change, but she was a firm believer in the ripple effect, where one small word or action could grow into something bigger.

Maybe she couldn't unite all of the houses and live in harmony together with everyone treating each other with respect, but she could at least plant the concept into the minds of others that it was a possibility that they could get on with people outside of their own groups.

* * *

Once Harry's friends had left he placed his barely touched sandwich on the bedside table and made to settle down to sleep some more.

Before he got any further than grabbing his quilt though, Poppy approached him and sat down on the bed in the spot Hermione had recently vacated. In her hands she held a simple, obviously masculine, silver watch with a face that displayed the first twelve roman numerals.

"Harry, do you remember that communication device I spoke of to you last night?"

Harry sighed and replied, though only as a reluctant participant of the conversation. He couldn't care less anymore about the stupid symptoms or how he would deal with them. When they came, they came, and then he would die. It was as simple as that. What was the point in complicating things?

"Yeah."

"Well, this is the device I was talking about. You just lift up the latch that the face of the watch is on, almost like a locket, see? Underneath it doesn't look like anything is there but the material inside has been soaked in a special potion which will emit a wave of unseen magic when it comes into contact with a certain person.

"Originally, this was used by people who perhaps had a family member, like a mother, grandparent or child, who was very sick and in need of constant attention. Obviously people can't spend every second of their lives watching their sick loved ones, and so they used this as a kind of alarm which the sick person would carry around. If there was an emergency, or they needed help, the sick person would open the watch face, or locket, or whatever the device was, and touch the potion contained inside. On contact the potion would let out a wave of the persons magical signature, which the caretaker would feel and know that their charge needed their help.

"I thought it might be useful to you since I can't be with you all the time. After-all, if you want to keep things a secret then you can't just tell someone nearby what is wrong with you and to go fetch me. If we were to use it then only I would be sensitive to the wave of magic the potion creates, anyone else might sense something momentarily but nothing major.

"That is where the problem comes in, however. In order for the potion to work I have to be extremely familiar with your magic and I need to keep myself open to the wave of magic the potion will produce. You see, every wizard and witch is born with a kind of protective barrier around the magic within their bodies which prevents their magic from being so easily accessible to everyone, and so that they themselves won't be over-whelmed by the magic of everyone else bombarding their senses. A person's magic is a very personal thing as well. To allow anyone to feel your magic is something only done between those who are very close. It would be like getting married, or adopting a child you have fostered for a long time, or even the act of sex between lovers. It is an intimate process. That is why your friend Luna Lovegood can often appear rather strange. The experimental accident that killed her mother also destroyed the protective barrier around her magic, so she is constantly connecting to the natural magic around her. She finds it very difficult to function normally sometimes, and we do keep a close eye on her but her case is extremely rare. There is little known about how to deal with it. We do what we can though, obviously.

"But anyway, because of the close relationship typically involved in this kind of process, I will completely understand if you decide you don't want to use this method of communication. Don't feel like you have to say yes because my feelings will be hurt if you say no. After-all it is almost unprecedented for this device to be used outside of close family relationships for a reason. Do you want to consider it?"

Poppy waited patiently for an answer but all Harry could think of to say was 'What's the _point_ though?! It'll never make a difference in the end!' Admittedly it might reduce his suffering in some indirect way but Harry would rather not suffer at all thank you very much. He wished he could just skip the long battle with his body that he faced and die immediately, while he still had an arguably half-decent quality of life. Maybe Poppy would understand…she would surely have a method of humanely euthanising him; she wouldn't want him to suffer after all.

"Harry?"

Harry had sat there without answering for so long that Poppy had to prompt him out of his depressing daze. He decided that it couldn't hurt to ask, right?

"Poppy, isn't there a way I could…speed this process up?" Poppy's brow crinkled in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this whole cancer thing entirely. Can't I make it go quicker…as in, so quick it's pretty much immediate? There must be come kind of potion or spell that would do it?"

"Harry, are you actually suggesting to me that I _murder_ one of my students?!"

Every inch of Poppy's face screamed complete and utter incredulity as she stood up from her seat on the bed while Harry's immediate response was to cross his arms defensively and straighten up properly, suddenly feeling much more defiant and determined regarding the matter when he saw her reaction.

"Not _murder_, more like euthanasia really. It would just be putting me out of my misery; I don't want to spend the last of my life suffering! If I have to die can't I at least do it on my own terms? I'm so sick of being out of control, why can't I just have this one thing before I die? Can't I just get to make _one_ decision and not have it ignored? All my life I've let everyone else make my decisions for me but I'm _sick_ of being manipulated! If I can't gain control of my life then the least I can do is gain control of when it ends, and I don't want to draw it out any longer than necessary. That's my final decision, and whether you help me or not I'll make sure it happens. You can't watch me all the time."

Harry's gaze was like a turbulent sea with the array of different emotions they held but it was fierce, determined and resigned more than anything else. In his mind he would have his way. All he waited on now was to find out if Poppy would help him or not.

What she did next was in no way what Harry would have predicted from her, but he would be hard pressed to find a situation for the rest of his life that was diffused as quickly and easily as the one he had created by the simple, and yet in his eyes unbelievable, action his healer took.

"Oh, Harry! Come here!"

Poppy replaced herself on the bed next to Harry and pulled him into her until his upper body rested in her lap and she rocked him, mumbling nonsense and runner fingers through his hair. She pressed a kiss to Harry's head, deeply feeling the pain of someone she loved being apparently so determined to die.

Harry, utterly shocked by her reaction, did nothing for a good few seconds. He had been expecting anger, disappointment, disbelief, _anything_ but this comforting acceptance of the depth of his feelings on the matter. And suddenly he wished she had gotten angry. He wished she had shouted at him, called him stupid, forbidden him to leave, anything. Because all her sympathy did was break down the wall he had unwittingly constructed and allow the dam inside to break allowing the emotion to come pouring through. Suddenly all the fight in Harry left him and he once more allowed his pained heart a voice through his tears, whimpers, sobs and sniffles with the gentle presence of Poppy to ground him.

"Not once in all my years have I seen you look so defeated Harry! Not even Voldemort could squash your will to survive, what's so different about being ill? Both make you suffer and both threaten your life, why let one get to you so much and not the other? And what's all this about control, hm?"

Harry abruptly pulled away and sat up, scrubbing his face roughly with the palms of his hands and clearing his throat in an obvious effort to pull himself together and destroy the evidence of his most recent breakdown. He was sick of always crying, he'd never acted like such a baby in his life, it felt like all he did was cry these days. It was getting ridiculous. It was pathetic.

"Harry? What's wrong?"

"I'm _sick_ of crying! All I ever do is cry! It's stupid. Girly."

"Oh, don't be so silly. If a person can't cry when they've been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, then when _can_ a person cry? I'd be more worried if you didn't cry an awful lot if I'm being honest. These things take time to deal with; you can't just shrug it off a couple of days later. I understand that so don't bother feeling embarrassed that you've cried a few times. I don't think any less of you for it.

"Now, why don't you explain to me some of what you're feeling? Maybe we can sort some things out, hm?"

Harry sighed and pulled his legs up onto the bed once more in order to sit cross-legged. Once comfortable he gave a somewhat simplified, understated explanation for how he felt.

"I'm just sick of having no control over anything in my life. I feel like I've never had a choice, and now that I'm dying I feel like I've missed a chance to _take_ the control that I _would_ have taken had I been able to live my full life. I'm sick of being manipulated, I'm sick of being who people have expected me to be just because I let it become my comfort zone. Basically, I thought I had time to figure out what I wanted and who I was, but now I know I don't, and without the hope that someday I'll be able to live free of this life, I just don't see the point in it anymore. I just want to end it now instead of going through all of the suffering and _then_ dying."

"Harry, the cancer doesn't mean you've lost your chance to take control. Maybe it's just the opportunity you've been looking for to kick-start this process. Would I be correct if I were to say that you would be happy if you could just decide what you want to do and be, and you were able to go ahead with it instead of just obeying everyone else?"

"I guess so, pretty much…well, yeah. I want to do what I want…if that even makes sense."

"I see. Tell you what then, why don't you to write a list of everything you want to do before you die. Don't think of any limitations either, forget you only have a certain amount of time, and forget about all this cancer business. Just think about what would allow you to leave here happy. Then we'll have a look, see what will be possible, and get you started on going through that list. I'll do my best to help you get the things on the list done. Does that sound fair?"

"Yeah. Thanks Poppy," Harry smiled. He didn't know if this could actually work or not, but either way no one had ever gone out of their way to allow him to do what he wanted before, and that was enough to make him try at least.

"Good. Now, you get started on that, while I see to whoever is at the door."

At that moment Draco Malfoy walked through the door with his wand pointed at his forearm, casting a refrigeration charm. Poppy must have cast another warning spell at the door without Harry noticing, because the nosy Slytherin had made no noise as he approached the hospital wing, and therefore given no warning.

Great. Just what Harry needed. Malfoy seeing him just after bawling like a newborn baby, and judging by Malfoy's expression he wasn't going to get away with the excuse of hay fever or a cold, despite their present location.

Harry was extremely aware of the fact that he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, still wearing pyjamas and more than likely looking like crap. In front of Malfoy. He would cringe if it weren't for the fact that Malfoy was staring at him. As well as that it would be extremely obvious to Malfoy that he had just been crying. He resisted the urge to wipe his face once more. While it might rub away any lingering evidence of his tears, they might have already disappeared enough to be unnoticeable. In that case rubbing his face would only draw closer attention, which would then alert Malfoy to the fact that he had been crying when he might not have noticed otherwise.

Harry lowered his head in an effort to hide his face and listened as Malfoy complained to Poppy about his friends apparently cursing him. His eyes never left Harry as he spoke, and when Poppy had to disappear into her office to collect a potion from one of the cabinets in there, he took his chance to roll his eyes, sigh, and start in on Harry.

"Oh for the love of…What's got you all upset _now_ then Potter? I heard you had an accident at Quidditch but I never realised you'd be this pathetic about it, crying like a two year old with a skinned knee? Honestly, you're such a baby!" Malfoy tutted mockingly.

"Piss off Malfoy, what would you know? I might have a perfectly good reason to cry! Not that it's any of _your_ business. And besides, you're one to talk considering everyone knows you're the biggest girl around when it comes to a little pain. Tell me, have you got an extra X chromosome secretly stashed somewhere? It wouldn't surprise me if you did actually, it would explain a lot. Why can't you just crawl back into the hole you came from?" Draco was clearly baffled at the bit of Muggle biology, but he understood the rest well enough.

"I am not a girl! I just use the situation to my advantage when I'm hurt is all, just like everyone else around here. The big difference between what I do and what you do Potter is that your inability to cope with anything is genuine! I don't think even a flobberworm is weaker then you are, you can't handle the tiniest little pain or problem. I mean, look at you! You're already healed, there's nothing wrong with you! Get a grip!"

At that moment Poppy came back with what looked like bottled snow, oblivious to the boys' argument, and sent Malfoy on his way quickly, but Malfoy's words had already had the chance to spear through Harry's heart, and Harry was fuming.

'How dare he! I can handle anything I put my mind to. _He's_ the one with no strength of mind or character! I'll show him, nothing can stop me from standing tall, nothing!'

With that vow burned permanently into his mind's eye, Harry set about finding a piece of paper to get started on that list. He would need it. He just _knew_ that from then on that he wouldn't let this thing beat him. He couldn't stand the thought of letting Malfoy win. He would prove his rival wrong once and for all. No mater what happened there would be nothing that could bring him down. He would NOT. Give. In.

* * *

The second Draco walked through the doors of the hospital wing he cast his gaze around the room, his eyes searching out their assigned target; Harry Potter.

His arm twinged again and not for the first time he cursed his idiotic, fanatical friends for the completely _DISLOYAL_ and _UNCONSENSUAL _act of throwing an _Incendio_ at his arm so that he would have an excuse for going into the hospital wing to try and figure out what was up with Potter.

All he had done was walk innocently into the dorm room after doing prefect duty with his Ravenclaw counterpart to find his friends puzzling over why Potter hadn't come out of the hospital wing since the day before. They managed to discover he had been put there by a Quidditch accident during practice by eavesdropping on the Gryffindors, but there were two things which made the group extremely curious as to what else might be going on behind this so-called accident.

The first was the fact that Potter didn't have Quidditch accidents. Not once in his Quidditch career had there been an incident that had ever purely been a simple mistake. There was always something more going on behind it, whether it was homicidal bludgers or even dementors wanting to suck out his soul.

The second reason for their curiosity was that Potter had been kept in, not only overnight, but off of classes as well. This was extremely unusual, as most incidents were healed extremely quickly. Only more serious problems required more lengthy visits.

Instead of just leaving the issue when it became clear that the answer wasn't just going to pop up in pink neon letters in front of them like any _normal_ person would have done, his psychotic friends had thought it a good idea to send him in incognito. So, they _burned_ his_ arm_ so that he would have a reason for being in the hospital wing without arousing suspicion WITHOUT including him in this little decision, and then had the _nerve_ to laugh at him when he screeched indignantly and then grumbled loudly about the fact that the lot of them couldn't produce one brain cell if they all chipped in together.

"What's happened to you then dear?"

"My IDIOT friends burned my arm. Practicing _Incendio_." Malfoy scowled and snorted; "They definitely need it anyway!"

He was not impressed. Not in the slightest.

Well, since he had been sent in here against his will he might as well do what he came here to do. He had noticed the second he walked in that Potter had been crying. He would have loved to feel the satisfaction of knowing Potter looked like an idiot when he cried, but sadly he was one of those highly annoying people who managed to look amazing whether they cried or not. Draco looked like he was allergic to tears when he cried, something he hated with a passion. His face went all blotchy and his eyes went all red and puffy, he even got a runny nose that left him sniffling pathetically all the time. And yet, there Potter sat with a face blotch-free and a complete lack of red eyes or puffy skin. The only thing to give away the fact that Potter had been crying at all was the moisture still clinging to his eyelashes, even the tear tracks had been wiped away. This just served to further irritate Malfoy and he couldn't help but lash out.

"Oh for the love of…What's got you all upset _now_ then Potter? I heard you had an accident at Quidditch but I never realised you'd be this pathetic about it, crying like a two year old with a skinned knee? Honestly, you're such a baby!"

"Piss off Malfoy, what would you know? I might have a perfectly good reason to cry! Not that it's any of _your_ business. And besides, you're one to talk considering everyone knows you're the biggest girl around when it comes to a little pain. Tell me, have you got an extra X chromosome secretly stashed somewhere? It wouldn't surprise me if you did actually, it would explain a lot. Why can't you just crawl back into the hole you came from?"

Draco couldn't help but get a little confused, 'X chromosome? What on earth is that? It doesn't matter! That prick just called me a girl! No wait, try and get him to say why he's here…um…I know! I'll make him think I see him as pathetic, then maybe he'll try and prove he's not by telling me about whatever horrible thing he's supposedly gone through to land him here in the first place!'

"I am not a girl! I just use the situation to my advantage when I'm hurt is all, just like everyone else around here. The big difference between what I do and what you do Potter is that your inability to cope with anything is genuine! I don't think even a flobberworm is weaker then you are, you can't handle the tiniest little pain or problem. I mean, look at you! You're already healed, there's nothing wrong with you! Get a grip!"

Just as Potter was about to answer Madame Pomfrey came out of the office with a potion to help heal the burn and sent him on his way. He had no choice but to leave with no new information to help solve the mystery. In fact, if anything, what he'd discovered just made it even more a mystery, as far as Draco could see there was nothing wrong with Potter except the fact that he'd cried, so why was he In the hospital wing?

When Draco reached the common room, he pointedly ignored his Potter-stalking friends and strolled calmly back to his dorm room to plot revenge on them. He wasn't indulging their stupid tendency to want to know anything and everything about Potter until after he had gotten his own back on them. It may just be something they do as a joke to provide some entertainment, but burning his arm was desperate, even for them. Admittedly the curse was an extremely weak one, and it hadn't really hurt after the initial first couple of seconds…but still! That was impulsive, even for them! Well, maybe not…actually, it was just the sort of weirdo thing they'd do all the time really…and they always did it to Draco because for some reason they found his reactions _amusing_. Hah. He'd show them amusing. Let the pranks begin!

**To Be Continued...**

**Anonymous question answered:** Someone reviewed anonymously asking if I'd ever known anyone young facing death with illness. The answer to that would be no. This concept I'm writing about is completely foreign to me, I have never known anyone, even a grandparent, who has been in hospital with an illness. I don't know anyone who has faced death, so none of this is taken from experience. I wanted to do something that would be challenging though, and if I could I wanted what I wrote to mean something, I wanted to try and understand what the people in these situations go through, and that is my motivation for writing about the concept of cancer.

**IMPORTANT POLL!!: **Okay. Music will have a pretty big/important/continuous role in my fic for two reasons. The first reason is that many songs have inspired me to write, and often inspire me to come up with quite a lot of the scenes/incidents etc in this fic (so a lot of the time the scenes are fitted to the song, not the other way around, so they DO connect to each other), and I really want to share with you the songs that inspired this fic in a lot of ways so that you get the same benefit from it that I do. Also, if I include the songs that inspired me I think it'll help understanding and help convey certain concepts in the fic for the readers :) The second reason is that it will eventually become a bit of a plot device beyond the standard role of "songfic" or "musical", but I obviously can't tell you what that will involve lol :)

Now. I would like to make a couple of things clear: I can't NOT use music in my fic, but I'm aware many people don't like it and I have therefore got a poll on my profile for people to let me know what level of usage it gets as well as _how_ I use it. I don't want to lose any readers to this. Now, trust me when I say I know myself how it can be annoying and so I have some assurances:

I won't use songs with only a few relevant/applicable lines. Either the whole song makes sense to my fic, or I don't use the whole song. If it's necessary I WILL explain any connections which may not be 100 clear, or who's points of view etc. Though that should be glaringly obvious. I won't just plonk it down in some random place without even referring to it or _using_ it in the fic, unless that's how you want me to do it.

Also, it won't all just be from one band or style because I'm a fan or something. There is definitely variety and I'm not just plugging a band or song. Songs will be used purely for the lyrics being relvant or something like that. Even if I don't particularly like the song, if I hear it and it's relevant, it'll be used lol :P

I just really want you all to really _feel_ and _understand_ the music and the fic in connection to each other etc the same way I do :)

So, please vote in the poll (there's even an "I don't mind" option, so vote even if you don't care lol :) )

PM/review me if you feel REALLY strongly or have suggestions etc :),

Carrie xxoo


	6. The Wish List

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_**Please scroll down to bottom to read new AN added 18/07/2012**_

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**Disclaimer:** See first chapter please.

**A/N: Sorry **for the stupidly **late **update. If you'd kept up with the progress log on my profile you'll know _why_ it's late :) I won't bore you with silly-long excuses here though, as the vast majority of you no doubt _really_ couldn't care less.

Any **opinions** on the following chapter would be appreciated, but I _think_ it's better than the last. **Thank you** for those who commented on the last by the way, I agree with those of you who thought I'd hurried things too much with Harry going through the range/spectrum of emotions. Hopefully this chapter will help explain why I felt the need not to linger on the whole suicidal bit, despite my agreeing that it was _too_ hurried.

Without further ado, please enjoy chapter 6 :)

**Chapter 6 – The Wish List**

While Draco ignored his friends' attempts at interrogation and tried to come up with different ways to prank them for even _daring_ to pull that stunt with the incendio on him, Harry sat on his hospital wing bed and rapidly scribbled every little thing he could think of that he would love to do on a piece of parchment. His expression changed often, flitting between different emotions as quickly as his hand formed each item on his list, but the ruling expression was a pensieve one. This was important to him. He would put all of his effort into creating this list, and he would make sure he did all he could to get everything realistically possible on it done.

**Poppy  
**

Poppy watched from afar as she pottered about doing any small chores in the wing, as long as they kept her close to Harry. She wanted to be there when he finished.

It wasn't until half an hour before dinner that Harry finally seemed to relax back into the upright pillows behind his back and survey what he had come up with.

"Are you finished your list?"

"I think so. I guess I'll just add anything else I think of to it later, but just now I think I'm done. Do you want to see?"

Harry looked up and Poppy felt a spark of happiness that Harry considered her worthy enough to be so open with her. She had worried that the list he had written would be too personal for him to allow her to read it, but it seemed her anxiety was unfounded. He was obviously keen for her to go through the list with him. She couldn't help but enjoy the feeling it gave her, the sense of what it must be like to have a son that depended on you, regardless of age or independence level.

"Certainly! Now, let's see…"

Harry handed her the list and let her eyes scan the parchment his hands had so painstakingly written on. What they found was a variety of things, some of which were expected, but a large number of which were not. Poppy raised her eyebrows at a few, and in any other circumstances she would utterly disapprove of plenty of them, but she reminded herself that Harry wanted to do these things, and he only had a very small amount of time left to do them in.

"Well, it seems to me like a lot of these would involve leaving the school grounds…?"

"Yeah, I know, but you said not to think about restraints so I just put down anything I could think of. But it's okay. I can just do the other things on the list." Harry smiled but Poppy could see the resigned disappointment in his eyes.

"You know…it's an awful shame I've had to ban you from Quidditch…not very fair at all…maybe it would be fairer to give you a special pass with permission to leave the school grounds at any time you wish? Just as an alternative form of entertainment, of course, as a sort of consolation for the loss of flight. Obviously only staff members can give out such things, and obviously students aren't ordinarily allowed them except in special circumstances.

"But I'm sure your teachers would recognise my authority as part of the staff to give a student who has so _unfairly_ and _unwillingly_ been stripped of his _favourite_ hobby a pass, should they ask. Don't you think?" The healer's so-called 'casual' tone was actually rather far from casual and closer to scheming. She couldn't help but smile as Harry's face lit up.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Just try not to be too obvious or silly with it. You could get it taken from you if you draw too much attention to the fact that you have permission to be outside of Hogwarts at any time. You can bring people with you wherever you are, up to a maximum under one pass though; so you can bring your friends. Just promise me you'll be careful?"

"I promise, Poppy! Thank you so much! You won't regret this, honestly!"

"Good. Now maybe you can get out there and have a bit of fun."

"Don't worry, I intend to."

Poppy took hold of Harry's hand and gave it a squeeze, her expression and manner changing the tone of their conversation to be more serious.

"I'm glad to hear it, but does that mean I can trust that I won't find you lying at the bottom of the astronomy tower or lying in a pool of blood then? It scares me to hear you say you want to take your own life, but I would rather know so that I could help you."

Poppy fixed him with a probing gaze that forbade him to avoid either her or the necessity for an honest answer to her question. Harry sobered up quickly and became rather sheepish in response.

"I - I'm really sorry Poppy, I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't even mean it, not really. I just got so _frustrated_ and had a bit of a temper tantrum I guess, that's all. I mean, you know me, I might get really angry very quickly but stuff like that never lasts with me. In fact, I can just imagine that by the time I had everything set up to do away with myself I'd just be really annoyed and disgusted for even thinking of being such a spineless quitter."

Harry gave a weak smile in an effort to reassure.

"Seriously though, if there's one thing I've taken pride in my whole life it's that I don't let anything get to me, not even my family. I want to be strong. I don't want to let them have the satisfaction of ruining me. I suppose I kind of forgot that when Voldemort came back. I can't help but feel ashamed of myself when I look back and see what I've let myself become…but this is my chance to make up for it! I'll prove that I have plenty of inner strength. I can handle anything if I put my mind to it. I know I can."

The sheer strength of the conviction, determination, and will-power in Harry's voice gave Poppy the reassurance she had been looking for, allowing her to give him a smile at the end of his small speech. Harry's eyes burned with the inner strength he had always had, despite it having been dampened since Cedric Diggory's death and Voldemort's return. Poppy couldn't help but notice that the words sounded almost like a long-ago, yet familiar, mantra being renewed.

She couldn't have been more accurate, and the longer her mind lingered on the words Harry had spoken the more she remembered past incidents when the words had gotten him through.

"Now _that's_ more like the Harry Potter I know. I haven't heard that particular pearl of wisdom from you in a while. You used to say that to me all the time in your earlier years, when you would talk about your family. I admit it's a relief to hear you say it again.

"But now I think it's about time you rejoined the world of the living, don't you? Go and get ready for dinner. It'll be starting soon."

With that said Poppy patted Harry's knee twice, stood up and left him to organise himself. She was glad that the idea of it being better to kill himself now, instead of trying to make the most of the life he had left, had pretty much been derailed before it could pick up steam.

Harry left the hospital wing to make his way to dinner with his list clutched in one hand, and his ticket to making the things on that list possible tucked away in his pocket.

**Harry**

As Harry made his way along corridors and down stairs, suicide was the last thought on his mind. What ran through his head continuously instead were the countless new possibilities that were now ahead of him. There were so many previously locked doors now opening up to him, all thanks to Poppy, and now he could barely decide what he wanted to try doing first.

He supposed logically that he should do the most important things to him first. So what was most important to him in life? The people in it of course. That meant that he should start making changes and taking action regarding those people first, rather than starting with experiences which weren't all that important in the grand scheme of things. Well, beyond the fact that he _really_ wanted to do them.

But even then, there were so many things in that particular category of Stuff-To-Do that he _still_ wasn't sure where to start. Perhaps with the Slytherins?

Holly abruptly popped into his head, along with the memory of promising he would visit her at her table some time. He would need to make sure he did visit her; he didn't want to let her down after all. She was a sweet kid, and it would be nice to catch up with her and make sure he hadn't unwittingly botched her healing. He would do it another night though; he wasn't that sure he was up to it at the moment. His day had already danced an emotional tango and the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with the uncharted territory that was the Slytherins' table.

Before Harry could consider his options any more he was hit with another thought, just as he walked the last few paces to the doors of the great hall, causing him to pause in the rhythm of his footsteps briefly.

'Of course! Voldemort! How could I forget!'

Harry couldn't help but feel slightly ashamed that he had taken so long to even remember his and Voldemort's unfinished business. Its importance went above and beyond anything else on his list, and the fact he had even had to think about what to deal with first was disgraceful.

Harry made the decision then to have 'Find a way to off Voldemort, soon.' be his top priority. While he worked on it (He had no doubt it wouldn't be a walk in the park after-all, far from it in fact), he would take the opportunity to do anything else on his list as it came to him.

Before Harry could complete his journey to the Gryffindor table he looked up and caught the eyes of Ron, who looked at him rather apologetically and then shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Confused, Harry scanned the rest of the table and found the majority were shooting extremely annoyed glances in his direction. Harry quickly slowed down as he tried to puzzle out exactly why he was getting such dirty and betrayed looks. Finally, he realised.

'Of course. Ron must have told them about me quitting the team…maybe I will visit Holly tonight after-all. It'll probably be less stressful than the earful I'll get from the Gryffs.'

Harry smiled in reassurance at Ron and Hermione's sympathetic expressions and waved cheerfully, turning around and heading for the Slytherin table.

**Occupants of the Gryffindor Table**

Back at the red and gold table the students were quickly frowning in confusion just as Harry had. Ron lowered his feebly waving arm slowly.

"Ehhh…where the heck is he going exactly?"

"Looks like the Slytherin table for some reason." Hermione answered, her eyes following Harry as he came to stop next a first year girl. Her hair was an ash-brown colour and held back from her face in a pony-tail, making it easy to see her dark grey eyes and the countless freckles that littered her mildly pale face. Neither Ron nor Hermione recognised her.

"You can't be serious. What on earth for?"

"Maybe he's trying to prove a point?"

"What, you mean because of what we were talking about earlier? Why would he do that?"

"Well, I don't know, I'm just guessing here."

Ron eyed the rest of the Gryffindor table, as though the answer would be written on one of their faces.

"We're not _that_ scary are we?" asked Dean, who was one of those who had been glaring at Harry for the, in his opinion, _idiotic_ decision to quit the team. It was like throwing away the cup!

"Yeah, actually, you do look pretty creepy now that you ask. You should really look up some cosmetic charm specialists. Come on 'Mione, let's go."

Ron and Hermione made to climb out of their seats as the rest of the table got a laugh at Dean's expense, but Harry glanced over, made sitting motions with his hands and mouthed 'Later!', causing them to resume their seated positions. The Gryffindor table exchanged nonplussed looks.

"I assume we'll be giving him the third degree the second he gets back to the tower then?" Ginny asked casually.

"Definitely!" replied Parvati.

"I was thinking something more along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition." Hermione chipped in, in a jokingly sadistic manner as she reached for her pumpkin juice.

"I like your style Hermione!" was Seamus' input, and from there everyone went back to enjoying their meal, knowing they would extract answers from Harry soon.

**Pansy**

Meanwhile, sitting at the Slytherin table and blissfully unaware of what was about to transpire, Pansy was beginning to get extremely annoyed. She was _trying _to have a conversation, but this was made much more difficult when the group of first year girls she and her friends were sitting next to kept acting like such snobby, all-knowing prats. One of the three girls seemed to be claiming that she was a friend of Harry Potter's, and he was going to come sit at their table for the sole purpose of experiencing her company.

Yeah, right.

Normally Pansy wouldn't have cared one little bit considering ridiculous claims like that were common, especially amongst the innocent first years. What caught her attention and annoyed her this time, however, were the two girls who appeared to be the storyteller's friends. Supposedly.

While Pansy agreed that there was nothing wrong with telling their friend that they didn't believe her and she should stop telling such obvious lies, it was the way they went about doing so that she found appalling. Draco, who sat across from her, seemed to agree if the frown on his face was anything to go by.

"We're not _stupid_ you know Holly, I wish you would just stop going on about this stupid lie! Harry Potter is _not_ going to make friends with a first year Slytherin, especially not one like _you._ If he _was_ to make friends with a Slytherin first year you'd be the _last_ person he would consider, you're too whiney and clumsy and babyish. You know, if you keep acting like such a loser you won't have _any_ friends, honestly, you've been annoying us so much with this nonsense! Right, Megan?"

Megan, who blushed as the attention was turned to her, just nodded uncertainly. She thought Holly was being rather silly with her outrageous claim of being Harry Potter's friend, but that didn't mean she deserved such mean things being said to her. Unfortunately Megan didn't have the necessary back-bone to say that to the third member of their group, and so the self-important girl made to continue her harsh rant with a victorious look as no one put her in her place.

Until, that is, Pansy finally decided that she had, had enough of listening to the blatant bullying going on right next to her.

"Oh for goodness sake! Lay off will you? You're starting to annoy _me_, and I'm not even involved! Quite frankly I'd rather have a lying loser for a friend than you if I had to listen to _that_ all day. You should _always_ support the members of your house. Even if it means you take them aside and warn them _subtly_ that their behaviour isn't appropriate to a member of the house. Never forget that."

The young girl's mouth snapped shut and she blushed, slightly ashamed at herself for having to be reminded by a sixth year of what was important; the strength of the house as a whole. She just got so caught up with the vision of superiority which she had been disillusioned with that she couldn't help but voice her thoughts. It was a habit that was slowly being broken down by the collectivist attitude of her housemates, rather than the individualist attitude of her family at home.

When Pansy turned back to her friends, Draco gave her a barely noticeable nod after taking note of the first year's reaction. She couldn't help but smile a little in return. As senior students it was their job to watch over the state of their house, and constantly ensure that everyone observed the basic principles lain down by their head of house. It was nice to be given acknowledgement for her efforts to maintain the long-standing tradition of solidarity within.

**Draco**

"Oi, Malfoy. Incoming."

At the unexpected warning from an unknown third year boy, Draco looked away from Pansy and looked for whatever or whoever was coming. What he discovered was that Potter appeared to be making his way over to the Slytherin table. Pansy narrowed her eyes in question when she saw his response to whatever was occurring behind her, no doubt able to read the expression on his face that seemed neutral to anyone else, but to her screamed 'What the Hell?'. Draco just shook his head and muttered to her the name of the disturbance, which was steadily succeeding at silencing all conversation at the Slytherin table as more and more people noticed him. Draco privately commended Pansy for not instantly turning around to get a look for herself at this never-before-seen occurrence. Draco had been known to occasionally bother the Gryffindors at their dinner table, but they had never taken up the act themselves before, not even once. Pansy whispered back incredulously;

"Why the hell is he coming over here? He's never bothered before, why start now?"

Draco just shrugged again and pretended to be casually eating his dinner in preparation for the expected interruption, though what the interruption would involve was a complete mystery to him. He waited patiently and calmly on the outside but inside his mind raced through the possibilities.

Maybe Potter was coming over to insult him. But if that was the case, why was he bothering now when he had never bothered before? Maybe he needed to talk about something. Although, what on earth could he possibly want to talk about?

Draco froze suddenly. Maybe he wanted to talk about the war in some way. Or maybe he wanted to talk about Draco's father...Or Voldemort...Maybe he even wanted to ask Draco for his allegiance and loyalty! Maybe -!

Maybe he wasn't even coming to see Draco.

Potter had just walked quite casually past his rivals. Draco pretended not to notice the slight disappointment curling its way around his mind. He instead allowed a small, confused frown to escape. What on earth was going on here? He noticed that Blaise looked like a kid in a sweet shop, considering the opportunity he had to observe such a rare piece of gossip about the boy-who-lived in person. Everyone else at the Slytherin table within a reasonable distance of this strange event continued to eat their dinner as normal and didn't look at Potter, but they all remained silent and hyper-aware of where he was heading and anything he might say. They all waited on tenterhooks to see where he was going, only to feel complete confusion and ignorance when he stopped next to a first year girl.

Blaise' eyes glimmered in glee, causing Millie some amusement at his predictably childish behaviour. She just knew he would be speculating on this incident for weeks to come and by extension so would she.

Pansy and Draco, however, locked eyes at the realisation of Potter's original destination. The girl hadn't actually been telling the _truth,_ had she?

**Harry**

Harry almost groaned when he finally spotted Holly sitting right next to Malfoy and his cronies. Well, he might as well bite the bullet and go sit down. He wasn't letting the prospect of Malfoy spitting insults at him for the duration of dinner stop him from keeping his promise.

Making sure not to even look at his opponent, Harry confidently strode over to Holly and alerted her to his presence by dropping his bag onto the bench next to her. Conversation was non-existent around him by the time he had reached the table, and Holly twisted in her seat to see who was causing all the fuss.

"Harry! I _knew_ you'd come!"

"Of course I did, I said I would didn't I?"

Harry smiled at the girl as she beamed back and flung her arms around his waist, which was about as high as she could reach considering their difference in height and the fact that she was sitting, while he stood. Harry just laughed good-naturedly and stroked her hair since he couldn't wrap his arms around her in return from his position.

"Are your friends coming too?"

"Nah, they're staying at the Gryffindor table."

Holly pulled back out of the hug and glanced over at the Gryffindor table as Harry shoved his bag forward off of the bench and under the table in order to make room to take a seat. While he settled down, he also glanced over to his house table and found Ron and Hermione beginning to climb out of their seats as if to follow him.

Harry quickly signaled to them to stay put; it wouldn't be a good idea to have them come over until he'd explained to them why _he _was even there in the first place. The last thing he wanted was for a fight to break out between the Slytherins and his friends when he was only trying to spend some time with Holly. Malfoy and the others appeared to be handling his presence well so far, but he didn't know if their tolerance would stretch to include two more Gryffindors, no matter how curious they might be as to why exactly the trio were there talking to one of their first years.

This was, of course, assuming that the reason for their silence was curiosity. It could have simply been the fact that they were so shocked at his presence that they hadn't yet recovered enough to fully react, and would do so explosively at any moment...

Harry decided not to look into the proverbial gift-horses mouth however, and instead turned his attention once more to Holly. He placed his hand under her chin and gently tipped her head back. He wanted to be 100 per cent sure that his healing spells had done their job faultlessly.

Holly just stared back at him while he examined her face.

"Em…Harry? What are you doing?"

"Hm? Oh, I was just checking to see there was no bruising or anything. Did everything heal up okay? Be honest!"

"Yeah, you did a great job Harry! I wish I could heal stuff. Do you think Madame Pomfrey would let me help her when I'm in 6th or 7th year too?"

"I don't know, that's up to her I'm afraid. You'd have to prove to her that you take it very seriously though, and that you'll work very hard to be able to learn the techniques properly. I'm sure if you're determined enough you could convince her eventually."

"I hope so! I've decided I want to be a healer when I'm older. I'm going to work even _harder_ than your friend!"

"Good luck then! I doubt many people could manage that considering the _stupid_ amount 'Mione works. Just be careful and try not to wear yourself out too much like she sometimes does. You should work hard, but you should play harder."

Harry winked playfully at Holly and finally took note of the people he was sitting next to. The girl sitting across from him had long dark hair, pulled up into a neat, elegant bun, and fairly pale skin. Her eyes were also dark with the colour similar in shade to that of a medium coffee-brown, which expressed her wariness of him and the sense that she didn't quite know what do to with herself in her current situation. As a result she appeared to shut herself off from him to a degree for protection.

Next to this girl, and in front of Holly, sat a rather timid looking blond girl with averagely blue eyes and a slightly rounded face. Harry could barely believe the similarities between the girl and Neville, and if he hadn't been positive that Neville would have told them if he had a sister, he would have easily believed the girl to be a long lost relative of the boy's.

To Harry's right were a large group of third years, and to Holly's left sat none other than Draco Malfoy's group, though specifically it was Parkinson actually sitting next to her.

Harry had to remind himself not to bother about them when the eerie silence began to creep him out a little. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this exposed.

"So, I take it these are your friends then?" he asked, referring to the two first year girls sitting across from him and Holly.

"Yep. The one sitting across from you is Ann, and the one across from me is Megan."

Harry offered his hand to the girl opposite him but she seemed rather wary of taking it, making Harry think for a split second that she would refuse to shake his hand at all. In spite of this, however, she slowly but surely lifted her hand off of her lap to grip his own briefly, though not so brief as to be impolite.

"Hey, my name's Harry – "

" – Potter. I know. Ann Dawson."

Harry tried hard to hide his irritation at Dawson's interruption and the fact that she just ignorantly rubbed in his face the fact that he couldn't seem to escape the reputation he now had. He couldn't even introduce himself to a stranger without them already knowing him (or so they thought), and it was all thanks to the newspapers and magazines. They couldn't seem to find anything better to talk about than him, which you would think was an almost impossible task considering the times they were living in, but somehow they managed to defy that impossibility.

"Oh. Right. I should have figured you'd know already. Sorry."

**Draco**

Draco, who had missed the slightly bitter tone in Potter's voice, snorted quietly. 'Arrogant git. He really does seem to expect everyone to know who he is just because he's got a scar.'

**Harry**

The blonde girl, apparently Megan, wasn't as restrained as the newly identified Ann, and smiled at him in greeting while she too shook his hand.

"It's nice to meet you Harry. I didn't really believe Holly when she said you two were friends I'm afraid. Sorry Holly."

Megan's last phrase was directed at Holly with a blush, who simply flicked the end of her pony-tail over her shoulder and smiled in a combination of acceptance at the apology, and dismissal to Megan's lack of belief in her. When Holly could see that her friend still felt awkward and uncomfortable, she tactfully changed the subject to safer ground. Or so she thought.

"I heard you were in the hospital wing Harry, is that why you missed dinner? Are you alright now?"

Harry scanned the table in front of him to see if he could see a pudding he particularly fancied while listening to Holly. He had missed the main course while getting ready to leave the hospital wing.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing that Madame Pomfrey can't handle, you know how she is. Probably better than anyone else I bet." Harry teased.

Holly stuck her tongue out at Harry in response and spooned some ice cream into her mouth. Meanwhile, Harry couldn't recognise the plate of muffins sitting in front of him and happily seized his chance to get off of their new, barely touched conversation topic again.

"I thought the menu this week was the normal one? What's this?"

"Well, it is. It's just that different house tables get different things. Those are banana muffins. The Gryffindors get chocolate muffins don't you? It's so unfair! I love chocolate muffins but we _never _get them." Holly pouted and glared at the offending plate of cakes. Harry merely blinked in surprise.

"Really? What's the point in that? Why don't they just give everyone a selection of muffins? That's so stupid." he commented bemusedly. "Well, you can have mine if you want. Although I'm assuming Ron hasn't scoffed it already. Which he probably has actually."

"Really?"

"Sure. Hang on and I'll go see if Ron's already eaten it. I normally give it to him anyway you see."

Harry climbed out of his seat and left his school-bag behind in what was either a moment of utter brainless stupidity, or a show of good faith towards the Slytherins while he walked over to the Gryffindor table to see if there were any chocolate muffins left for Holly.

**Holly**

The second he was gone the Slytherins broke out in frantic gossip, eager to ask and answer as many questions as possible in the time they had before Potter got back. After the initial outburst of hissed whispers however, the general hubbub died down until everyone left the questioning to Holly's friends while they listened in.

"Oh my God, Holly! I can't believe you made friends with Potter! Of all people! How did you do it? Where on earth did you even meet him? And what's he talking about some healing thing for? Did -?"

Holly was completely taken aback at first but she recovered eventually and finally managed to reply, cutting off Ann's constant stream of inquiry in the process.

"Calm down! It's not that big a deal, honestly. Remember that day I tripped and fell on the stones outside, and I scraped up all of my face and arms? Well when I went to see Madame Pomfrey, Harry turned up. Madame Pomfrey was busy with a couple of other boys though, so she taught him how to heal my scrapes on a fake arm and he healed me up. That's it, basically."

Finally Blaise could contain himself no more and he dropped all pretences of not being interested.

"He was in the infirmary again? Do you know what for? This is getting kind of weird don't you think? I mean, in the last month alone Potter was picked up out of potions where it was implied he'd been there once already. So, that's twice. Then there was the incident in potions again, three, the time he apparently met you, four, and then this mysterious Quidditch injury that was no way bad enough to justify how long he was in for, five. That's more than once a week!

"Something's not right, I'm telling you. Maybe Madame Pomfrey is training him even though he isn't out of school yet, that at least fits in with what you're saying about him healing you. Speaking of which, did he _really_ heal you? I'm shocked if he did, even the trainee healers out of school don't get to do that kind of stuff without studying all sorts of theory on it first."

"He _did_ _so_ heal me up, and there were no bruises or sore bits or anything. Has he really been in that much though? I hope he's alright. Maybe he's just really clumsy like me?" Holly couldn't help but worry upon hearing her friend had been in the hospital wing so much.

**Pansy**

Pansy could see that Potter was making his way back over, and took her last chance to say what she wanted to say.

"Listen Whyte, I'm sorry. I thought you were making it up just like everyone else. If I had known you were telling the truth - "

"It's okay. I guess it is kind of unlikely that we would be friends. I mean, where or when would we meet up in the normal school routine? No where really."

**Harry**

By the time Harry sat back down everyone had once more returned to pretending to eat their puddings obliviously.

"Sorry, but Ron got there before me."

"Awwww, that's a shame. It doesn't matter though." Holly looked vaguely disappointed, making Harry bite his lip, feeling even worse.

"But it's still not fair! Tell you what; I'll bake some chocolate muffins for you. How does that sound?"

"You can do that?"

"Yeah. I know where the kitchens are. You can help me if you want, we can make loads and you can hand some out to your friends or something."

"That would be so cool! I didn't even know you could cook! Can we do it tonight?"

Harry looked slightly surprised at Holly wanting to bake with him that very night, but it wasn't like he really had anything else on tonight, and it would be a great excuse to escape from the question and answer session that was no doubt awaiting him back in the tower.

"Sure, why not. I can meet you at eight in the entrance hall and take you to the kitchens if you'd like?"

"Yes! I can't wait!" Holly punched her arm in the air in her excitement, once more acting like she was cheering at a Quidditch match, making it clear to Harry that this method of expressing her happiness or excitement must just be a quirk belonging to the girl. He smiled at the enthusiasm and decided he would settle for a cup of tea and get something to eat in the kitchens later if he felt hungry.

The conversation from then on was mostly held between Harry and Holly, with Dawson and Megan only talking when they had been spoken to directly and an answer was expected. Malfoy and his friends, meanwhile, continued to eat in near silence, partly because they didn't want to miss anything important, but mostly because they simply didn't know what to do with themselves. After-all, what did one say in response to your supposed enemy sitting himself down in the middle of home-base and chatting idly with one of your own?

After a while of talking about how Holly was getting on in her classes, and Harry helping her with the pronunciation of _Wingardium Leviosa _(not forgetting to regale her and her friends with the tale of Ron's difficulty and Hermione's slightly patronising help), the conversation was interrupted by none other than Severus Snape.

Those who saw him coming first could only assume that he was there to question Potter's presence, and possibly do something about it. They just couldn't decide whether or not they hoped this assumption would prove to have a base in fact...actually, they were getting quite annoyed at their own lack of decision making. One would be forgiven for thinking they were incapable of it the way they were currently going, and Slytherins absolutely abhor appearing incapable or unable. However, we've been sidetracked; let us move on.

Harry quickly thought of what the reason was for the subtle change in atmosphere and gave himself the internal instruction to just play it cool. He calmly sipped his tea and waited for the professor to reach him and say whatever it was he had to say.

"Potter."

"Professor?"

"What evenings do you have free?"

Harry blinked. Was he getting detention then? Somehow he didn't quite think that was very fair, especially considering there wasn't an actual _rule_ stating anywhere that the houses_ had_ to stay apart.

But that made no sense, if he was getting detention then why would Snape bother to ask for a time he was free to do it in?

"Why?"

Uh oh. Now Snape just looked irritated.

"Why do you _think_, you dunderhead, have you already forgotten our arrangement regarding remedial potions lessons?"

Snape raised his eyebrow.

"Oh! Yeah! I completely forgot about that! Em, I'm free for whenever you want me."

Upon hearing the words coming out of his mouth Harry couldn't help but be aware of how they could be taken and quickly re-worded to rectify this.

"I mean, I don't have anything on other than classes, so it doesn't matter when you want me to come down for help with potions."

Harry reached out and picked an apple up off of the table, thinking about eating something after-all while Snape considered this along with the rest of the table. He really liked apples. Especially the red ones and this one looked particularly good. He bit into the apple and decided yes, this was definitely a good apple.

"What about Quidditch practice?" Snape asked slowly, clearly confused. Surely the boy couldn't have forgotten about Quidditch, he was supposed to be ridiculously fanatic over the sport after-all. Harry hummed slightly as he swallowed his bite of apple, clearly enjoying the taste, and then replied, still smacking his lips slightly,

"Don't have it anymore."

**Severus**

Severus could swear he felt the first twinges of a headache coming on. He couldn't believe the idiocy of this brat!

"Potter, as much as I realise that you are ridiculously full of yourself, I think stopping to bother with having your team practice is going a _bit_ beyond cocky, don't you? You're supposed to be the team captain and it's your duty to do everything you can to help your team be the best they can be, not selfishly use your authority to get out of practice - "

"I quit the team."

Potter took another bite. He seemed for all the world that this really wasn't a huge deal for him or the Slytherins around him. In fact he appeared to barely be paying attention; he was far more focused on eating his apple than anything else.

**Draco**

"What?"

The word slipped out of Draco's mouth before his brain had a chance to remind his lips that they were supposed to be set to "silent treatment" due to the utter disbelief that Potter's statement had instilled in him. This was some kind of bad joke, right?

**Harry**

Harry simply ignored Malfoy's question, or possibly didn't hear it, and instead chose to take the initiative with his conversation with Snape, since the man seemed to have forgotten the point in it anyway.

"How about on a Friday or Saturday then, if you're free and willing? That way, if I screw something up majorly I'll have enough time to clean it up without having to worry about how close to curfew it's getting, or any homework due the next day I'm supposed to be doing and stuff. Or even just for when I might have to do a potion that takes me a while to make in general I guess. I don't really mind at all though; it's up to you."

Snape was finally brought back to reality long enough to agree that, that sounded fine before stalking off, his usual frown fixed in place.

"Harry! I can't believe you've quit the Quidditch team! Why did you do that, you _love_ Quidditch don't you? Is it because of that Quidditch injury? Was it really that bad? Will you be able to play again? Can you still do other things? What about – "

Harry laughed in amusement at Holly's steady stream of questions and placed his hand over Holly's mouth to try and stop her long enough to try and answer them, and hopefully move on to another topic as soon as possible as well.

"I can assure you that I have definitely quit the Quidditch team. Well, I told Ron and 'Mione that I'd have to quit the team and Ron blabbed to the rest of the tower, but I haven't officially told McGonagall the news yet. I intend to as soon as I can though."

Harry had planned to answer all of Holly's questions one after the other, but was prevented from doing so when more questions came at him. The first came from Holly;

"You HAD to quit the team? So your injury really is that bad?"

The second came from Dawson, who looked confused;

"The tower?"

"Em, no, I didn't mean I had to quit the team as in I had no choice. The tower is just what we call our main group of Gryffindors in general, because our living area is in a tower. Sorry, it never occurred to me you wouldn't be used to the nickname. It just makes it easier to refer to 'the tower' instead of 'Ron, 'Mione, Dean, Neville, Parvati, Lavendar, Seamus' etcetera when talking about us all."

"Ohhhhhhh! Is that why they don't look very happy with you? I can't imagine they'd be very pleased with you leaving the team."

Harry sighed at Holly's astute judgement of the slightly hostile vibe his table had been projecting at him earlier.

"You'd be right. They're NOT very pleased with me right now. Well, I'll admit I haven't had the courage to go and face the music yet but I'll probably get it in the neck when I get back to the tower. I can just hear Seamus now: 'I can't believe you'd do this to us Harry! You're practically handing the Slytherins the cup, do you _want_ them to win this year?' Urgh. And to make it even _worse_ they probably won't stop bugging me about why I'm sitting at your table."

**Draco**

Draco let out a disbelieving snort.

"I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be courageous Potter, scared of your own lion cubs?"

Potter scowled at him.

"Nobody rattled your cage Malfoy, just do us all a favour and go back to pretending to eat your dinner."

Draco would have taken great pleasure in using this opportunity to jump into another battle of wits with Potter, but he was thrown off course by the fact that his enemy appeared to be rather unexpectedly observant. Millie looked just as disconcerted by the fact that Potter had apparently noticed their lack of interest in their meals. Had they really been so obvious about it?

No. This was Draco Malfoy. That just couldn't happen...Perhaps they would need to be more careful around Potter though. In retrospect it seemed like a rather foolish idea to take it for granted that Potter was completely oblivious.

What else could he have noticed?

**Harry**

Harry, satisfied with the lack of response from Malfoy, turned back to Holly while making a point of twisting his body in the chair so that he put as much of his back to Malfoy as possible without looking ridiculous.

"Anyway, as you were saying Harry."

"Right...Wait, what was I saying again?"

**Draco**

Scratch that. Potter was oblivious. His comment about pretending to be interested in dinner was either a complete lucky fluke at being observant, a random shot in the dark which happened to be true, or the Slytherins really had been shocked to the point of losing all sense of subtlety.

**Harry**

"So you really did choose to quit Quidditch then? Why would you do that? You're the team captain, and everyone knows you're important to the Gryffindor team. Everyone says you practice nearly all the time."

"I know, but – "

Harry, who had no idea of what would come next in the sentence he had begun, couldn't have been more relieved when the owls began streaming in through the open windows high up the walls of the hall.

Due to the times they were living in it was an extremely likely possibility that the students' and teachers' owls would be intercepted. In an attempt to prevent this, the times of the owl delivery had been changed from breakfast time to a random, constantly changing schedule. The students and the senders themselves didn't know when the owls would arrive, just that they would arrive during a meal time, and not at all on some days. This made it harder for people to predict when to take their chance and capture a poor owl to try and glean any information that could be useful to them from the animal's cargo.

Today the owl post was obviously being delivered during dinner, and Harry couldn't have asked for a better result himself when they effectively stole the students' attention. He glanced up at the whirls of feather and talon himself, trying to spot the familiar spark of snow amongst the streaks of brown and sure enough Hedwig soon broke through the throng to drop a newspaper on the table in from of him.

Harry smiled affectionately at the bird and let her hop onto his arm so that he could smooth her feathers while cooing words of praise and thanks.

"Wow Harry, your owl is so pretty! What's its name?"

"Her name's Hedwig. She's very friendly, too. She won't mind if you pet her. You can even feed her if you want?"

At Holly's beaming smile it was obvious she would love to and so he picked some scraps from the table in front of him and handed them to Holly. He then held out his arm to bring the bird closer to her and Holly began feeding Hedwig with one hand and stroking her head with the other.

Eventually the bird decided that its human contact quota had been filled to a satisfactory level and flew off without warning, clipping Holly's head with her wing as she passed.

"Hey! Her wing got me!" She yelped in surprise, causing Harry to snicker at the startled expression on her face.

"Don't worry. That means she likes you, she does the same to Ron and 'Mione all the time. If she _really_ likes you she'll nibble on your finger or your ear depending on where she's sitting at the time. So far she's only ever done that with me though." Harry reassured, scanning the front page of his copy of _The Daily Prophet_.

Holly grinned with pride at Harry's owl liking her and turned to her own mail. She however, unlike Harry, skipped the front page of her own copy and had a quick flick through to get a vague idea of what the paper contained. She liked to wait until she had privacy in the evening to read it if it had a lot of topics she was interested in. If it seemed that the content wasn't anything she particularly cared about in much depth however, she would just skim read it at the dinner table. One article managed to catch her attention, and she paused in turning over the pages at a steady pace.

"Hey Harry, you're in the paper again."

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes.

"What are they saying _now_? Honestly, I can't believe people actually think this rag is worth anything. I mean, anyone with a shred of sense in their brain could logically deduce that half of the rubbish they print isn't true. Quite frankly, who _cares_ how tall I've gotten, or whatever other completely random, insignificant and mostly false thing they seem to think is important to report on? I only get this thing so I can understand what on earth is going on when I get randoms coming up and asking me if I was really accepted into a herd of centaurs as one of their own. Have you ever even met centaurs? That proposal is nothing short of ridiculous. One even asked me if I had 'mated' with one! Can you believe that?"

Holly giggled at Harry's rant and took note of the increasing number of people beginning to lean over in their seats in an effort to get a better view of him while he was occupied with reading the article Holly had pointed out. She too went to read it, wanting to know what the fuss was about.

_**Poor Potter Puts on the Pounds!**_

_For a long time many of us have admired our favourite little hero for his strength and determination in the face of adversity. As we all know, it is not easy to stay positive under such terrible strains and pressure, and he manages it so easily where many would fall. _

_Or so we thought. _

_New evidence has come to light that paints a rather different picture and the truth it speaks is that our chosen saviour is simply not coping. "What is this so-called evidence?" I hear you cry, but before I drop the bombshell I believe a little background knowledge would be appropriate._

_Depression is a serious mental illness and it is common knowledge that, among other symptoms, changes in eating patterns are a common indicator. This can be either under-eating due to a lack of appetite and interest in food, or over-eating in a search for comfort._

_One of our faithful readers (who will not be named) has managed to obtain and send to us a t-shirt belonging to none other than Harry Potter himself, as can be seen in the above picture. As you can no doubt see for yourself the garment is worryingly big at a staggering size 16 – 18 (extra-large)._

_Could The–Boy-Who-Lived be so depressed that he has to resort to food for comfort? One has to question how the poor young man's mental state has been allowed to deteriorate to such a shocking level that he has comfort-eaten his way to obesity. _

_This reporter only hopes that he is given the proper help he needs to recover from this, and I am sure the public will join me in supporting him every step of the way. _

Well, that definitely explained why everyone was trying to get a good look at him; to judge for themselves how "fat" he really was and how he would react to the revelation that someone within the school must be acting as a spy for _The Daily Prophet_. Harry didn't appear to have noticed however as he was calmly folding his paper up.

Holly was worried about his reaction to finding out that someone had stolen his clothes and sent them to a reporter. After-all, who else could get a hold of them except someone in Gryffindor? It was never a nice feeling to discover a knife in your back, especially when you don't know just _who_ exactly it was that betrayed you and put it there. It would only cause paranoia and drive a wedge between people who had already built up a lot of trust.

"Harry, everyone's staring." She muttered unsurely.

"I know. They want a reaction, so I won't give them one. Look, Holly, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to skip making muffins with you tonight. I'll organise another time whenever I see you."

"That's okay, Harry, I understand."

"Thanks, Holly, you're a star."

Harry pecked Holly on the forehead in thanks, climbed out of his seat and unhurriedly swung his bag off of the floor and over his shoulders.

"I'll speak to you later but just now I need to have a few words with my house."

He explained mildly at the question in Holly's eyes, though somehow the statement felt like the real emotion behind it was suppressed in Holly's ears.

"Bye."

"Bye, Harry!"

Holly waved at the sixth year as he stalked out of the hall. Boy was she glad she wasn't a Gryffindor. Who knew what drama would unfold between Harry and his housemates when he walked into that supposed tower.

**TBC**

Please don't laugh at my attempts at writing an article, even though the author of the article is supposed to be incompetent XD

I wonder who will recognise which book shares its title with this chapter…

No idea when the next chapter will be out. I will try to make it much sooner than this one was but if I'm being honest I can't make any promises. And no, that isn't me shoving a cop out/a little insurance in there just because I expect the next chapter to be just as late. When I say I'll try and have it out asap, I mean it :)

**Thank you** to my beta Geanie, for suprisingly having not abandoned me and my story yet! ^_^; (Oddly enough o.O) Also, good luck to her for her finals ^_^!

**..::;;~;;::..**

**NEW A/N: **

**ATTENTION**

**!**

**I'm not dead! But more importantly, this story will finally be adopted! **There have been attempts before but I was simply too busy with university till now to spend the time explaining all of my plans to the person who would adopt it. I have the time now however (and said explanation currently sits at 5000 words worth of basic gist =|), and** Taylor1991 has been given permission to adopt. **We're still currently in the process of negotiating and establishing exactly what I had planned, and which, if any, of my ideas she intends to use etc, so please be that tiiiny bit more patient while we talk and she begins writing =) Thankfully, she appears to be a much more reliable updater that you can actually count on, unlike me XD** I think she intends to host the story on another site **since she intends to write at a rating too high for this site, but either she will post something letting you all know where you can find it, or I will post something to let you all know as soon as I know details.

**I want to thank you all for reading my story, and if you enjoyed it, I'm glad =) I hope the continuation (which I don't even know a single thing about myself at the moment) is satisfying for you all and that people can CONTINUE to enjoy it,**

**Carrie xxoo**

**!**

**ATTENTION**


	7. Adopted!

**I'm not dead! But more importantly, this story will finally be adopted! **There have been attempts before but I was simply too busy with university till now to spend the time explaining all of my plans to the person who would adopt it. I have the time now however (and said explanation currently sits at 5000 words worth of basic gist =|), and** Taylor1991 has been given permission to adopt. **We're still currently in the process of negotiating and establishing exactly what I had planned, and which, if any, of my ideas she intends to use etc, so please be that tiiiny bit more patient while we talk and she begins writing =) Thankfully, she appears to be a much more reliable updater that you can actually count on, unlike me XD** I think she intends to host the story on another site **since she intends to write at a rating too high for this site, but either she will post something letting you all know where you can find it, or I will post something to let you all know as soon as I know details.

**I want to thank you all for reading my story, and if you enjoyed it, I'm glad =) I hope the continuation (which I don't even know a single thing about myself at the moment) is satisfying for you all, and that people can CONTINUE to enjoy it,**

**Carrie xxoo**

**P.S. This will be deleted after a few days, a week tops because I don't think they like people doing this? But I don't know another way to let you all know :/**


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